Nery Alaev writes about the UK housing market.
Brexit is having an effect on the confidence of home buyers in the UK, I have found, but sales of homes in the country are likely to remain at a steady pace as the buying and selling intentions among buyers haven’t been heavily affected by the vote.
What does this mean? It means that while buyers (who responded to research carried out by Halifax) aren’t confident in the market, they’re not at the point where they want to cancel their plans.
Less confidence, but still going ahead
The article states that:
‘Brexit appears to have had little impact on buying and selling intentions, with only 15% of those thinking of buying or selling a property before the vote saying they have since delayed or cancelled their plans as a result of it.’
The fifteen percent figure is surprisingly low – one would expect it to be much higher given the extent of negative coverage around the Brexit effect on the housing market that has cropped up – especially recently. This implies that despite growing fears, buyers are ‘hunkering down’ so to speak and are going ahead despite the looming negativity in the market.
Professional comment
Martin Ellis, a Housing Economist at Halifax, states:
“Optimism in the housing market has taken a fall in recent months, with many people now expecting a general slowdown in the market and no, or little, change in house prices over the coming year.
This sentiment is consistent with recent findings from the Halifax house price index which show that prices are still growing, but to a lesser extent.
Confidence with the wider economy has tracked down sharply since May 2015 but encouragingly, optimism has bounced back to where it was a year ago and is broadly neutral.”
The comment indicates that low confidence contrasts with optimism is interesting – it may be that buyer’s optimism helps to keep the market buoyant as the UK enters a nervous 2017.
Nery Alaev
Nery Alaev is the current Director of ESN Investments GmbH, which engages in acquisition and development of commercial and residential property in Germany and Austria.