16th Jan 2023 14:17
(Alliance News) - Interest rate and consumer confidence worries cast a dark cloud over the UK housing sector last year, though 2023 kicked off with some good news.
Following successive monthly falls, UK house prices began 2023 with an improvement.
The average price of a property coming to the market for sale rose 0.9% to GBP362,438 in January, from GBP359,137 in December. Annually, the average asking price rose by 6.3% in January. In December, the annual rise was 5.6%.
Analysts at Winterflood noted it was the largest rise in UK property prices for this time of year since 2020.
It provided some welcome relief for London-listed housing shares.
Taylor Wimpey PLC rose 2.5% to 117.60 pence, Barratt Developments PLC climbed 1.5% to 461.75p, while Persimmon PLC was up 1.0% at 1,429.50p.
The trio's shares had crashed last year. Taylor Wimpey dropped 42% over 2022, Barratt lost 57% and Persimmon plunged 57%.
"After the market's uncertain final few months of 2022, this familiar seasonality is a tentative sign of stability...It's still early days, but this is a more encouraging start to the year than many anticipated," Rightmove said.
The online real estate agency said buyer demand rose by 4% in January when compared to the same period in the last pre-pandemic market of 2019, though it noted this was down by 36% compared to last year's busiest ever start to a year.
In addition, Rightmove said the number of prospective buyers sending an enquiry to an estate agent about a property for sale jumped by 55% in the last two weeks, compared with the previous two weeks.
The numbers from Rightmove came after last week's reporting flurry from housebuilders.
On Wednesday, Barratt warned that the UK housing market has suffered a slowdown. Its sales rate in the six months to December 31 weakened to 0.44 net private reservations per active outlet per week, from 0.79 a year earlier.
Persimmon on Thursday said its forward sales position stood at GBP1.0 billion at the end of last year, down 36% from GBP1.6 billion at the end of 2021.
Things were hardly more rosy for Taylor Wimpey either, it said its net private reservation rate for 2022 slowed to 0.68 homes per outlet per week from 0.91 in 2021.
By Eric Cunha, Alliance News news editor
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Taylor WimpeyPersimmonBarratt Developments