Specialists in real estate

On 2nd November 2023, the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee decided, by 6 votes to 3, to keep the base rate of lending unchanged at 5.25%. The decision was widely expected and caused no immediate disruption to a property market that has been making a slow but tenuous recovery. In recent weeks, the UK’s leading house price indices have shown modest improvements in their month-on-month price growth data, and the MPC’s latest decision will have done nothing to put that at risk.

Signs of a modest recovery in capital values are evident in the latest house price indices, with the majority of sources highlighting improvements in their month-on-month data. In the case of Halifax, that improvement only means a slowing in the rate of decline but for all others, it means that prices have either held steady or actively risen.

In the third quarter of 2023, we saw distinct signs that inflation was beginning to fall back towards the Bank of England’s target; the result mainly of the lower price of energy, services and food. It was also a period that saw an end to 14 successive rises in the Bank of England’s base rate of lending. With the Consumer Prices Index on a downward trend and many lenders now offering lower rates on their fixed-term mortgage deals, many analysts seem to believe that the cost of borrowing has now passed its peak.