Little Britain
Haven't checked in on UK housing for a while, with all the other political stuff going on in Blighty.
In spite of all the uncertainty, the UK now has a very low unemployment rate, with wages gradually picking up.
The Halifax reported - in that uniquely British 3m/YoY sort of a way - that the average house price was +3.7 per cent in August 2018, up from +3.3 per cent in July 2018.
The average
house price is now £229,958, according to the Halifax index.
The number of first homebuyers continues to rise as has been the case for many years now - and now sits only 8 per cent below the peak of the preceding boom.
The Halifax cites Help to Buy as a key precipitating factor:
'The
growth in first-time buyers means they have increased as a proportion of all mortgage financed house
purchasers from 38% in 2008 to more than half (51%) in 2018.
This share has picked up since 2013
when the Help to Buy Scheme was introduced, which has given 128,317 first-time buyers (81% of total
purchases under the scheme) a step on to the housing ladder over this period.'
