House prices in England and Wales look set to fall by 4% over the final quarter of 2023, according to the latest conveyancing data.
Analysis of over 221,000 agreed sale prices indicate average property prices will fall from £336,999 in Q3 of this year to £323,594 in the last three months of this year.
As a result this will mean house prices fall by 4.5% on an annual basis. This movement follows a 3.3% increase in the third quarter of 2023 and a 1% rise in the second three months, but a more significant 4.6% fall in the first quarter of the year.
The data, from comparison site Reallymoving, captures the price buyers have just agreed to pay for a property when they search for conveyancing services on its website, used by around 10% of those moving home. The company says this gives an earlier indication of house price movements ahead of land registry data.
Reallymoving says this latest decline reflects the impact of higher inflationary pressures this year. Regional data shows that the biggest quarterly fall has been in Wales with agreed prices down 9.8% on the previous quarter. In the North East prices are down 8.2% and in the West Midlands 8% over this period.
The smallest falls in England are in the South West, where agreed prices for property sales are down by just 0.6% over the quarter, and Yorkshire & Humber, down 2%
Reallymoving founder and CEO Rob Houghton says: “Buyers who agreed property purchases in the third quarter of the year are spending significantly less than they did in Q2, so sellers have clearly been forced to adjust their expectations in order to secure a sale.
“Bearing in mind the financial pressure buyers are under as they adjust to this period of much higher interest rates, and the impact on consumer confidence, it was only a matter of time until the prices they’re willing to pay started to fall.”
He says this softer market is good news for first time buyers who are looking to escape “eye-watering rent increases”.
The data shows that as a group first-time buyers accounted for 53% of all home moves in Q3 – the highest proportion in over a year.
Houghton adds that he expects to see more first-time buyers prepared to enter the market in coming months on the expectation that interest rates may start to decrease before long.
