The autumn of 2022 saw economic and political instability
with the resignation of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and the ill-fated Liz
Truss 44-day premiership. Now as we go into 2023, the economic and political turmoil
has subdued, offering a greater feeling of stability in money markets.
So on the back of that, what is the expectation for the British
(and Neath) housing market as we go into the new year?
The biggest issue is inflation. Low steady inflation of
around 2% a year is good for the economy, yet the high levels we are
experiencing now isn’t. It affects the spending power of the pound in your
pocket, and it alters the way people spend their money (including buying and
selling property).
So where has this inflation come from?
Many blame it on inflated gas prices because of the Ukraine
issue (however, it is believed by most economists only around 4% of the current
10.7% inflation figure is because of the fuel crisis).
UK inflation was already running at 6.2% when the Russian
tanks rolled into Ukraine in February 2022 which created that energy price
shock. Therefore, where has the rest of the inflation come from?
The catalyst of inflation started in 2020 with the Bank of
England’s Quantitative Easing (QE). This pumped £450m new money into the
economy at a time when the future looked bleak. The problem was, people had
nothing to spend that money on, so when things started to get going after the
lockdowns, there was a mis-match of too much demand for goods (as people had
that money) and a lack of goods and services (because there wasn’t enough supply
of those goods and services with the supply chain issues).
This all meant prices went up (i.e., inflation). The catalyst
of this inflation was the Bank of England printed too much money in 2020 with
QE and the supply chain issues (all easy to say with hindsight!).
Too much inflation is bad for the economy and therefore,
ultimately the property market.
Two things will reduce inflation.
One is a recession and the other is increased interest rates.
Many find it fascinating that the Bank of England were
talking the UK economy into a shallow recession in the autumn. Yet there was
method in their madness. It was because they didn’t want to rely solely on the second
method of increasing interest rates.
Better for the economy to have a shallow mild recession and
interest rates rising to say 4.5% by the middle of 2023 to reduce inflation,
than placing the whole job of reducing inflation on interest rates.
If that had been the case, interest rates would need to rise
to say 7% (or more), causing the economy (and property market) to stall … and
thus create a subsequent deep and long recession.
Therefore, with the Bank of England having recently increased
its base rate to 3.5%, with more interest rate rises to come in 2023, what
does this and the mild recession mean for the Neath property market?
A recession will increase unemployment levels, which have
been comparatively low in the last few years. Depending on the type of
roles/jobs that are made redundant, will determine the effect on the property
market. Until that happens, we won’t know.
Everyone is suffering from higher gas, electric, shopping
bills, yet with interest rates rising, this will increase the pressure on household
budgets. Higher interest rates mean higher mortgage payments if the
homeowner/landlord is on a variable rate mortgage (17 out of 20 homeowners with
a mortgage are on a fixed rate).
It’s these two factors of recession and interest rates
that will place negative pressure on Neath house prices.
Yet let us not forget this pressure is coming off the back
of two of the strongest years on record in terms of house prices and transaction
levels.
Neath house prices have experienced 37.3% price growth since the pandemic started in March 2020.
This is interesting when compared to the UK average, where
average house prices have risen by 27.4% or £44,700 since March 2020.
Before I tackle the issue of house prices in 2023, I would
like to look at the number of transactions.
To many the number of properties selling is irrelevant, yet
I believe it is as important, if not more important, than house prices. I
believe the best way to judge the health of the Neath property market is the
number of people moving home (i.e. housing transactions).
You could ask yourself why Neath people should be more
concerned about the number of property transactions and not the change in Neath
property values.
Many economists believe the number of property transactions is
a better judge of the health and virality of a housing market. The higher the number
of people moving home the better for the whole economy than a smaller number of
property transactions, whilst the same can’t be said for higher house prices.
Transactions levels have been quite high in the last couple
of years.
493 households per year have moved home in Neath since
lockdown, compared to the long-term 27-year average of 414 per year.
Looking at the stats coming through in the last couple of months,
maybe we will settle for a figure somewhere between the two figures above, yet
nowhere near the sub-350 annual figure of homeowners moving in the Credit Crunch
years in the 2008/9/10 time frame.
Finally, let’s look at Neath house prices in 2023.
A good place to start to judge house prices is how many
reductions are taking place on the properties that are already on the market.
In the last 3 years, the average number of price
reductions for the properties for sale in the Neath area (SA10/11) has been 25.9
reductions per month.
In October there were 72 price reductions and in November 69 reductions.
Homeowners are being more realistic with their pricing and
the price that one will achieve for their Neath home today and the rest of 2023
will be lower than one would have achieved in the spring of 2022.
Yet, as most Neath people buy another property when they
sell (and most of the time move up market) the price you would have had to pay
on the next purchase would have been even more.
Yes, the price of Neath property will be lower in 2023
by between 5% to 10%, yet these are only levels that were being achieved in the
spring of 2022 – and nobody was complaining about those!
Final thoughts.
Several economic commentators are preaching doom and gloom
for the property market in 2023, yet things are very different than the Credit
Crunch years of 2008/9.
The property market crashed in 2008/9 mainly because the banks
and building societies stopped lending money i.e., credit (that is why it was
called the Credit Crunch).
There are two large differences this time round.
The first is the introduction of Mortgage Market Review mortgage
stress testing instigated in 2014.
Homebuyers taking out a mortgage must have undergone a
stress test on interest rates to obtain a mortgage since 2014. These stress tests
are a safeguard to ensure that if their household income continued to be the
same, the homeowner could afford higher mortgage rates.
The second is the banks and building societies have much higher
cash reserves. Higher reserves will ensure they can continue to lend money and
so more mortgages are available, although at a slightly higher interest rate than
a year ago.
With mortgage rates falling back, with some very attractive fixed-rate
deals knocking on the door of 5%, this is a development that may continue into 2023
as banks and building societies obtain cheaper funding sources and then compete
for business by driving down the price of mortgages – which would only be good
news for the Neath property market.
These are my thoughts – what are yours?
