What's happened to UK house prices since the Brexit vote?
House prices did stagnate for a while following the referendum in June 2016. This could well have been down to the usual pattern of prices growing in spring and plateauing over summer, which we also saw in 2017. But, with Brexit looming ever closer, house prices suffered a bigger post-summer dip than usual in 2018, dropping from a peak of £232,797 in August to £230,630 in November.
Looking at year-on-year house price change over the longer term can be another useful way of understanding what the market’s doing. The rate of house price growth plummeted in the year after the referendum everywhere in the UK except Scotland.
It has continued to decrease in England ever since, although it’s begun to pick back up in the other nations. It’s worth bearing in mind that, while the rate of growth has decreased, house prices themselves haven’t – and many argue that the slowdown is simply a long-overdue market correction.
