House price watch

Your home may well be one of your major assets. Even if you are not planning on moving in the near future, it is always a good idea to keep abreast of the latest changes in the housing market.

We have included some, though not all, of the April 2020 house price watch figures below. But it does seem appropriate to point out that the speed with which the property market has slowed since the lockdown was announced on 23 March 2020 means that the figures below already seem out of date. 

The Rightmove April 2020 report states as follows: "For the second month running there were too few properties coming to market to accurately measure movement in new asking prices, and so we are not publishing average new seller asking price figures this month".

In its April 2020 report, Nationwide states: "Impact of pandemic will not be fully captured in this month's data".

Encouragingly, Rightmove report that: 

"With the reopening of the housing market in England, first day activity on Rightmove shows a release of pent-up home-mover momentum:

  • Home-mover visits to Rightmove back to pre-lockdown levels on Wednesday 13th May with almost 5.2 million visits, up 4% on the same day a year ago
  • Sales demand (unique enquiries) doubled from Tuesday to Wednesday, and was only 10% behind the same day in 2019."

Please note that there will also be regional variations.

Source Period covered Average house price Monthly change (%) Change past year (%)
Rightmove house price index March 2020 £312,625 1.0% up 3.5% up
Halifax house price index April 2020 £238,511 0.6% down 2.7% up
Nationwide house price index April 2020 £222,915 0.7% up 3.7% up