House prices in the UK are still surging – here’s why it’ll probably continue

The latest UK house price data shows no letup in the country’s booming property market, with the biggest yearly rise since 2014. And there’s no end in sight yet, says John Stepek. Here’s why.

Houses in Guildford
People are heading to country towns for more space
(Image credit: © Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

UK house prices (and those across the globe) appear to have done rather well during lockdown. Now that the economy is opening back up, can that continue? Unfortunately for anyone who wants to buy an affordable property in the near future, the answer appears to be “yes”.

There are an awful lot of house price indices in the UK, which is one reflection of how obsessed we are with them. The best-known ones are probably the Nationwide and Halifax indices. They’ve both been running for a long time and they both cover roughly the same stage of the process – they’re both based on data from approved mortgages. In other words, deals could still fall through but you’re far enough into the process that the price is pretty accurate, rather than aspirational.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.