Founder and CEO of eMoov.co.uk, Russell Quirk, comments on the latest Nationwide House Price Index
“Despite the artificial skew of April’s stamp duty deadline having been and gone, UK house prices have continued the upward trend that has been prevalent over the last year, increasing month on month again, albeit gradually.
There has been a lot of talk about how the market may come to a shuddering halt now that April’s spike in activity is behind us, however, I don’t believe that this will be the case.
There’s no denying that April’s change in stamp duty thresholds created an abnormality in market activity, but I don’t think it has brought about the death of the buy to let and second home market let alone the UK market as a whole.
When you also consider that we are entering what is seasonally the busiest time of the year for property transactions, I think the engine room of Britain’s property market will continue to trundle along at a steady pace, even if it does take a while longer to get up to speed than it may have in previous years.
Whilst interest rates remain at a mouth-watering low and the government continues to pump this feel-good factor into the UK economy, the dangerous imbalance between housing demand and supply will remain out of kilter and continue to push house prices up. Britain remains an aspirational home owning nation and neither an EU yes or no vote will change that”