We’re all used to newspapers having different takes on the same story, but this is ridiculous. “House price boom over?” screams the front page headline of today’s Daily Mail, pointing out that that the cost of property in four out of the 10 regions of England and Wales is falling. Not so, retorts the Daily Express, equally emphatically, under the headline, “House Prices still soaring”. Both stories, needless to say, are based on the same data: the latest (that is, April) data from the Land Registry, the most reliable source of property price information.

Part of it, of course, is down to the editorial policies of the two papers. The Express, when not predicting another ice age or uncovering new Diana conspiracies, is forever talking up the housing market on the (perfectly reasonable commercial) grounds that many of its ageing readers are home owners and therefore see price increases as a “good thing”. The Mail, by contrast, is the kind of publication for which the glass is always half empty rather than half full.

So what is going on? Well, there is no doubt the British property market is slowing, thanks to four interest rates rises over the past 12 year (and expectations of another to come). But these take time to bite – not least because some 70% of people are locked into long term mortgage deals, which means their repayments do not rise immediately when the Bank acts. The market, in the southeast at least, is also being buoyed by all that money still flooding into prime central London from abroad. This, in turn, has a ripple effect both on other parts of the capital and on the market for country houses. Priced out of Mayfair by a Russian or Arab buyer? Then you will have to look in Holland Park instead, driving up prices there. Eventually, though, the effect of the rising cost of money will prevail. Throw in the fact that affordability is close to record lows and it seems clear that for most of us, at least, the boom, if not quite over yet, will be soon.

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Background

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Background

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