High house prices are bad news for us all

UK house prices are rising at their fastest rate in 15 years. John Stepek breaks down why.

House for sale
House prices in the UK were up by 8.2% year-on-year in November.
(Image credit: © Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Markets might be a bit nervous at the moment, but one asset class is proving as impervious as ever.

Yes, the good old UK housing market is as robust as ever. In fact, according to the latest Halifax data, prices are now rising at the fastest rate in 15 years (albeit on one specific measure).

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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.