Asking prices of UK homes show smallest October rise since 2008

Asking prices for homes in Britain have risen at their slowest pace for the time of year since 2008, property website Rightmove said on Monday in a latest sign of how the climb in borrowing costs has slowed the housing market.

Average asking prices for homes increased by 0.5 per cent between Sept. 10 and Oct. 7 from the previous four weeks, well below the average increase for the period of 1.4 per cent, Rightmove said.

Prices were down 0.8 per cent compared with a year earlier and the number of agreed sales was down 17 per cent in annual terms.

Other measures of Britain’s housing market – which boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic – have also cooled with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ measure of house prices showing the most widespread falls since 2009 in September.

The Bank of England raised interest rates 14 times in a row between December 2021 and August this year, before pausing its increases in September.

Rightmove director Tim Bannister said the mortgage market was more stable after 11 weeks of falling mortgage rates and the number of buyers enquiring about each home for sale remained 8 per cent higher than at the same time in 2019 before the pandemic.