UK House Prices Rose by 8% in 2014

House prices in the UK rose by just under 8% in 2014, adding £14,600 to the cost of the average property, according to the Halifax.

A quarterly price increase of 0.3% brought annual house price inflation to 7.8% in December and the average property price to £188,858, the UK’s largest mortgage lender said.

This was considerably down on increases earlier in the year, with annual house price inflation hitting a peak of 10.2% in July.

Martin Ellis, housing economist at the bank, said that the combination of rising prices, low earnings growth and speculation about an interest rate rise had led to a drop in the number of sales in the last few months of 2014, which had slowed further growth.

He said that he expected house price growth to continue in 2015 but by a far more modest 3% to 5%.

“Housing demand should continue to be supported by a growing economy, rising employment levels, still low mortgage rates and the first gain in ‘real’ earnings for several years,” he said.

via The Guardian

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza