As more houses hit the the saturated UK market, price increases are expected to slow. The number of houses on the market across the UK has increased by 7.3 percent since July 2013, according to figures released by Haart, while at the same time, there has been a 2.8 percent drop in buyers. The supply-and-demand gap is particularly evident in London, where supply has gone up 32.3 percent over the year, but demand fell by 15.7 percent.
“The second half of 2014 marks a shift in favor of buyers as healthy volumes of stock return to the market,” said Paul Smith, Haart’s chief executive. “Many homeowners are adopting a now-or-never attitude to take advantage of the continuing strength of the market having seen their equity rocket over the last year at a time when mortgage deals with decent loan-to-values are still available. Interest rates are to remain at historic lows until the start of 2015 at least and this is helping wider confidence.”
