Data from 1975 suggests how this year’s EU referendum might affect house prices in the next two months
Here's an interesting point of comparison between this European referendum and the last one: house prices.
Yep: according to new research, house prices will be 1,751 per cent higher during this referendum than they were during the second quarter of 1975, when Prime Minister Harold Wilson called a vote on EU membership.
In the capital, that figure is almost double that, at 3,200 per cent. Ouch.
It might seem pointless to compare figures that divergent, but the research by property crowdfunding platform Property Partner, gives us some indication as to what house prices might do in the next few months.
According to the figures, quarterly house price growth slowed dramatically just before the previous EU referendum, from 18.2 per cent a year before the referendum to seven per cent in the second quarter of 1975.
Two and a half years before, house price growth had been recorded at a whopping 42 per cent.
Today's data showed the average house price back then was £10,728. In real terms, taking into account inflation, that's £99,949. Meanwhile, the average UK house price is currently £198,564.
That suggests residential property has outperformed all assets, including equities, which have increased in value 9.5 times since 1975, and gold, which is up almost 12 times.
According to the research, since 1975, house prices have only fallen in 30 of 164 quarters – although between the second quarter of 1990 and the third quarter of 1993, there were 14 consecutive quarters of declines.