UK house price growth eases in September - ONS
UK house price growth eased in the year to September, according to figures released on Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics.
Average house prices rose 13.6%, down from 16% growth in July. The average price of a house stood at £296,000 in August, up £36,000 on the same time a year earlier.
The ONS said: "Despite UK house prices increasing between July and August 2022, annual growth has slowed because of the sharp rise in house prices in August 2021 following changes in the stamp duty holiday."
London saw the lowest annual house price growth, at 8.3%, down from 10.1% in July. Meanwhile, the South West was the region with the highest annual growth, with average prices up 17% in the year to August. This was down from 21.1% growth in the prior month.
Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted that the house price data is based on transactions which will have been facilitated by mortgage offers made a few months earlier.
"The continued growth in prices, therefore, is not a sign that they are holding up well in the face of the recent surge in mortgage rates," he said.
"Timelier measures of house price growth have slowed; year-over-year growth in Nationwide’s measure of house prices dropped to a 17-month low of 9.5% in September, from 10.0% in August, while Rightmove’s measure of asking prices was up a more modest 7.8% year-over-year in October. Moreover, it will take a couple of months for these measures of house prices to register the impact of the sudden jump in mortgage rates over the last month."