UK House Price Index: July 2020

• UK average house prices increased by 2.3% over the year to July 2020, down from 2.9% in June 2020.

• Average house prices increased over the year in England to £255,000 (2.5%), Wales to £170,000 (3.6%), Scotland to £155,000 (0.4%) and Northern Ireland to £141,000 (3.0%).

• The West Midlands was the English region to see the highest annual growth in average house prices (4.3%), while the South East saw the lowest (1.0%)

• This bulletin is our last interim publication after we temporarily suspended the UK House Price Index in May 2020; the August 2020 index will be published as normal on 21 October 2020.

• The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released a public statement on the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the production of statistics; Section 7: Measuring the data describes the situation in relation to the UK House Price Index (HPI).

UK average house prices increased by 2.3% over the year to July 2020

During July 2020, changes to Stamp Duty Land Tax, Land Transaction Tax and Land and Buildings Transaction Tax were made. The UK House Price Index (HPI) is based on completed housing transactions. Typically, a house purchase can take six to eight weeks to reach completion. Therefore, the price data feeding into the July 2020 UK HPI will reflect those agreements that occurred before the tax changes took place.

The latest house price data published on GOV.UK by HM Land Registry for July 2020 show that average house prices in the UK increased by 2.3% in the year to July 2020, down from 2.9% in the year to June 2020 (Figure 1). This slowing in UK annual growth is partly a base effect as whilst UK prices have increased between June and July this year, they increased by a bigger amount during the same period in 2019. This base effect was driven by London, which saw prices increase by £8,000 between June and July 2019, but has seen prices remain the same between June and July 2020.

Over the past three years, there has been a general slowdown in UK house price growth, driven mainly by a slowdown in the south and east of England. The beginning of 2020 saw a pick up in annual growth in the housing market before the coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions were put in place at the end of March 2020.

Because of the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on both the number and supply of housing transactions, we might see larger revisions to the published House Price Index estimates than usual. Further information on this can be found in Section 7: Measuring the data.

The average UK house price was £238,000 in July 2020; this is £5,000 higher than in July 2019 (Figure 2).

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices in the UK increased by 0.5% between June 2020 and July 2020, compared with an increase of 1.1% in the same period a year ago.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices in the UK decreased by 0.4% between June 2020 and July 2020, following an increase of 1.8% in the previous month.

At the end of Section 4: House prices by region, we have explored the changes to the distribution of prices over the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The average house price in England increased by 2.5% over the year to July 2020, down from 2.9% in the year to June 2020, with the average house price in England now at £255,000.

House price growth in Wales increased by 3.6% over the year to July 2020, up from 2.9% in June 2020, with the average house price in Wales at £170,000.

The average house price in Scotland increased by 0.4% over the year to July 2020, down from 3.2% in the year to June 2020, with the average house price in Scotland now at £155,000. This decrease in the annual growth is partially because of a base effect, where we saw a £2,000 increase in average house prices in Scotland during July last year, and partially because of a £2,000 decrease in average house prices between June and July 2020.

The average house price in Northern Ireland increased by 3.0% over the year to Quarter 2 (April to June) 2020. Northern Ireland remains the cheapest UK country to purchase a property in, with the average house price at £141,000 (Figure 3).

The West Midlands was the English region with the highest annual house price growth, with prices increasing by 4.3% to £206,000 in the year to July 2020, up from 3.9% in June 2020 (Figure 4).

The lowest annual growth was in the South East, where prices increased by 1.0% over the year to July 2020.

London house prices remain the most expensive at an average of £485,000. The North East continued to have the lowest average house price, at £132,000, and is the only English region yet to surpass its pre-economic downturn peak of July 2007 (Figure 5).

Figure 6: There was a shift towards transactions of cheaper properties in April 2020

Percentage of transactions by price brackets, by English region, Scotland and Wales: March 2020 to July 2020

Notes:

1. The full House Price Index (HPI) release is available to download from HM Land Registry at GOV.UK.
2. Because of rounding, percentages might not sum to 100.

Data download

The recent price variations may reflect the unusual conditions in the housing market during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and movement restrictions put in place from 23 March 2020. People were advised not to move house during the tightest restrictions. As such, property transactions completed during that time may have been more concentrated than usual among those without complicating factors such as a chain. For example, first-time buyers may have been freer to complete transactions than former owner occupiers, who may have had to co-ordinate multiple sales during lockdown and would also typically be at the lower end of the price scale than former owner occupiers. This shift towards sales at the lower end of the price scale during April and May 2020 can be seen in most regions of the UK (Figure 6).

Data from UK Finance indicate that purchases by former owner occupiers fell the most in April 2020, at 61% on the year (PDF, 719KB), compared with a fall of 53% for first-time buyers and 54% for buy-to-let purchases. UK Finance data also show larger differences between first-time buyer and former owner occupier purchases for Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2020 in regions where the House Price Index (HPI) shows the largest price falls.

The increase in prices in June 2020 may reflect some degree of pent-up demand following the easing of lockdown restrictions, particularly at the higher end of the price scale. The picture for July has been more mixed, which could reflect the time taken for transactions to complete and also lingering impacts of the tightest movement restrictions.

House Price Index (HPI)

The House Price Index (HPI) measures the price changes of residential housing as a percentage change from a specific time period (12 months prior or a base period, where HPI equals 100).

House price inflation

House price inflation in the UK is the rate at which the prices of residential properties purchased in the UK rise and fall.

Non-seasonally adjusted

A non-seasonally adjusted series is one that includes seasonal or calendar effects.

Seasonally adjusted

A seasonally adjusted series is one that has been subject to a widely used technique for removing seasonal or calendar effects from time series data.

The UK House Price Index (HPI) is a joint production by HM Land Registry, Registers of Scotland, Land and Property Services Northern Ireland, and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). HM Land Registry publishes the main publication of the UK HPI on the GOV.UK website (9:30am, 16 September 2020). It includes full details, including commentary, historical data tables and analytical tools.

Coronavirus

The ONS is working to ensure that the UK has the vital information needed to respond to the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on our economy and society, this includes how we measure the UK House Price Index.

Because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on both the number and supply of housing transactions, some methodology changes have been made. The processing of new build properties has been more affected than the processing of “old build” properties. So, in order to address this, we have had to pool new build transactions for certain months:

• April 2020 includes new build transactions from both March 2020 and April 2020 for England and Wales

• May 2020 includes new build transactions from March 2020, April 2020 and May 2020 for England and Wales

• June 2020 includes new build transactions from April 2020, May 2020 and June 2020 for England and Wales

• because of the nature of the processing of the new builds, these are never included in the model for the first estimate, so July 2020 has not been affected

These changes might lead to larger revisions to published estimates than usual as we reduce the reliance on pooling. Further information on how we usually process the new build properties can be found in the Quality and methodology documentation.

The ONS remains committed to providing the best and most accurate information we can, serving the public good at a time when it is needed the most. We will be working to a publication schedule, detailed in this section, that will see us publish interim releases with a view to resuming normal publication in October with the publication of the August 2020 index. This schedule will ensure we can use as many transactions as possible in each of the suspended periods following the issues caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

As per our usual revisions policy, the figures for all months are first estimates and are subject to revision in subsequent periods.

Provisional publication schedule:

• 7 October – July 2020 index
• 21 October – August 2020 index

The ONS has released a public statement on COVID-19 and the production of statistics. Specific queries must be directed to the Media Relations Office.

After EU withdrawal

As the UK leaves the EU, it is important that our statistics continue to be of high quality and are internationally comparable. During the transition period, those UK statistics that align with EU practice and rules will continue to do so in the same way as before 31 January 2020.

After the transition period, we will continue to produce our inflation statistics in line with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics and in accordance with internationally agreed statistical guidance and standards.

Data sources

The main sources of data used in the UK are HM Land Registry for England and Wales, Registers of Scotland, and HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC’s) Stamp Duty Land Tax data for the Northern Ireland HPI.

Methods

The standard average house price is calculated by taking the geometric mean price in January 2015 and then recalculating it in accordance with the index change back in time and forward to the present day.

The UK HPI applies a hedonic regression model that utilises the various sources of data on property price and attributes to produce up-to-date estimates of the change in house prices in each period.

Quality

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in the guidance page of the main release published by HM Land Registry on GOV.UK.

Extent of data coverage

The UK House Price Index (UK HPI) can provide a wide coverage of both cash and mortgage transactions and a large data source. Data are available at a local authority level as well as by property type, buyer status, funding statistics and property status.

Time lags

As sales only appear in the UK HPI once the purchases have been registered (based on completed sales rather than advertised or approved prices), there can be a delay before transactions feed into the index. Estimates for the most recent months are provisional and likely to be updated as more data are incorporated into the index. While changes to estimates are small at the headline level, these can be larger changes at lower geographies owing to fewer transactions being used. Caution is therefore advised when interpreting price changes in the most recent periods. Further information is provided in our revisions policy.