Can the UK housing market escape a slump?

The Bank of England is predicting a 16% slump in house prices.

Allsop Residential auctions © Jeff Gilbert / Alamy Stock Photo
Property auctions may prove a leading indicator © Alamy
(Image credit: Allsop Residential auctions © Jeff Gilbert / Alamy Stock Photo)

The housing market has reopened, but “most ingredients are in place for a property crash”, writes Larry Elliott in The Guardian. Ultra-low interest rates and mortgage holidays should cushion some of the pain. Yet unemployment sits at 2.1 million. That is only a hint of the misery to come as the Treasury winds down its job-furlough scheme, which supports eight million people.

The Bank of England is predicting a 16% slump in prices, says Kate Andrews in The Spectator. Yet other analysts think that falling demand and supply will cancel each other out.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.