House prices bounce back in April 2019

After a tough start to the year, a housing market affected by Brexit jitters and buyers and seller uncertain what they should do for the best we are starting to see the green shoots of change.

This year our customers have experienced down valuations on remortgages and house purchases which has often meant they have not been able to borrow the amounts they have wanted or added additional time to their transaction. Lenders and surveyors have both shown caution over valuations and we have raised lots of appeals or had to change lender to obtain the mortgage our customers needed.

April could be a game changer for a number of reasons. Rightmove.co.uk reported a monthly increases for house prices of 0.8% for the East of England. Taking the average house price to £351,759 and the average time to sell fell dramatically to 69 days. They also reported more sellers coming to the market and higher buyer activity on their site.

The Halifax also reported a national rise in house prices of 1.1% in April after reporting a 1.25% drop in March. This puts the annual rate of house price growth up to 5% from April 2018.

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee has voted unanimously to keep the base rate at 0.75 per cent.

Good news for anyone with a tracker of discount rate that tracks the Bank of England base rate.