LONDON- Asking prices for British homes between mid May and early June rose by 0.8 percent compared with a month before, the biggest rise for the time of year since 2015, as available housing remains in short supply, property website Rightmove said on Monday.
The increase is less than the 1.8 percent recorded a month earlier but still takes asking prices 7.5 percent above their level in early March 2020, before Britain went into its first COVID lockdown.
“Buyer demand remains very strong, though with an all-time low in the number of properties available for sale … and new stock at higher-than-ever average prices, there are early signs of a slowing in the frenetic pace,” Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data, said.
Rightmove, which says it advertises 95 percent of homes for sale in Britain, collected the data between May 9 and June 12.
British house prices surged last year despite the pandemic as many richer households sought more space to work from home, and the government cut property purchase taxes to reverse an initial slump in sales early in the pandemic.
June is the last month when the full stamp duty tax break applies, before it is wholly phased out in October.
Britain’s official measure of house prices, based on completed transactions, showed prices in the year to April rose 8.9 percent, after a 9.9 percent increase for the year to March.
