On a quarterly basis prices rose by 2.9% – with average prices reaching £214,811.
House price growth reached 10.1% in the three months to March 2016 year-on-year, Halifax’s House Price Index has revealed.
On a quarterly basis prices rose by 2.9% – with average prices reaching £214,811.
In the early months of 2016 landlords have been rushing to beat the 3% stamp duty surcharge coming into force on 31 March.
Christian Faes, chief executive and co-founder of LendInvest, said: “The last couple of months have been somewhat hectic for the housing market. You can see the results of that rush in today’s house price figures.
“The government has the housing market crisis firmly in its sights, but it’s not yet hit on the right solutions. Making buy-to-let less attractive to the amateur landlord won’t suddenly push house prices towards more affordable levels for aspiring first-time home buyers.
“And while opening up public sector land to developers is all good news, unless more is done to help them actually finance those new houses, it won’t make much difference either.”
Jeremy Leaf, a former RICS chairman and north London estate agent, doesn’t expect house prices to plummet now boom time is over.
He said: “However, we don’t expect prices to fall by as much as some predict because of the number of first-time buyers in the market taking advantage of low interest rates.
‘The other reason why we don’t expect prices to fall is that at the coalface there is still a general shortage of the sort of property that people want to buy.
“Although more property is coming onto the market, much of it is aimed at investors who understandably are more reluctant to proceed because of higher stamp duty charges.’
