By Graham Norwood.
Black Brick Buying Agent, Camilla Dell, has once again shared her insights into the current UK property buying market this week.
Leading buying agent Camilla Dell, Managing Partner of Black Brick, has commented on the latest housing market data, warning that optimistic house price forecasts are rapidly being revised.
Nationwide’s most recent monthly index showed a 0.6% monthly price rise and 2.4% annual growth, putting the average UK house price at £272,664. However, Dell cautions that the broader picture is more complex, noting that “forecasts of house price growth made at the end of last year are falling like skittles.”
Savills has become the latest major agency to cut its projections, revising UK house price growth for 2025 down to just 1%, with 24.5% total growth forecast over five years. In London, prices are expected to remain flat this year, with just 15.3% growth predicted by 2029.
Dell highlights that conditions in Prime Central London remain particularly challenging. “If this sounds bad, then matters are even worse in Prime Central London, where flatlining growth would actually be good news,” she explains, pointing to a 3.7% price fall over the past year and values still more than 22% below their 2014 peak.
There are, however, pockets of resilience. Dell points to strong performance in prime suburban family areas, including Wimbledon (up 3.4%), Putney (up 2.5%) and Brook Green (up 1.3%).
Perhaps most significantly, Dell identifies a shift in who is driving demand in prime London. Domestic buyers — younger families seeking homes in prime outer London — have replaced overseas purchasers and investors as the dominant force in the market. “They are definitely the new buyers of London,” she says, describing them as “fairly young people looking for family homes, in prime outer London residential areas.”
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