London house prices: Property market stalls in September
The inexorable rise in London’s house market stalled in September according to Sequence, a national estate agency network.
The number of transactions fell by one per cent, adding to the body of evidence pointing to a marked slowdown in the London housing market.
“What we are seeing is a return to normality in the housing market,” said David Plumtree, chief executive at Sequence. “The main adjustment to the London market is the competition – there are now eight new buyers for every new instruction, rather than 15, as were seeing towards the end of last year.”
However, the average London house price is 18 per cent higher than September 2013 at £471,955.
The cooling is consistent with data published yesterday by HM Revenue and Customs. Its figures showed that the number of residential property transactions fell by 4.8 per cent between August and September when seasonally adjusted.
This represents a sharp break in the upward trend that has seen a greater number of transactions each month since February.
Survey’s by mortgage lenders Halifax and Nationwide have also pointed to a slowdown in the housing market at the end of sumner.
Last week, Joshua Miller, chief economist at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, told Morning Wire that house prices in London could fall slightly next year. This followed a similar prediction by the Centre for Economic and Business Research, which also predicted a marginal fall.