"On a short-term basis, the UK housing market is certainly susceptible to wider economic ebbs, flows, and woes."
- Jason Ferrando, CEO of easyMoney
Analysing historic data since the 1970s, easyMoney found that the UK’s average house price hit £10k for the first time in January 1976. Since then, it took 4,565 days or 12.5 years for the average to increase to £50k, in July 1988. This was delayed by the early 1980s recession. From here, it took 4,963 days (13.6 years) to climb from £50k to £100k, which it eventually reached in February 2002. This timeframe was significantly influenced by the 1990s economic downturn.
Considering the current growth of the property market, easyMoney forecasts that the average UK house price won’t hit the £300k threshold until August 2025, despite reaching £150k in August 2004. easyMoney has said that it can reasonably be assumed that this rapid price boom was at least somewhat fuelled by the mortgage bubble created by the subprime scandal, beginning in the US before creeping over the UK.
When this financial crisis hit, house price growth slowed in the UK, to such an extent that it took another 11 years to reach the £200k milestone. Following the financial crisis, the subsequent recovery took 5.6 years to reach the next milestone of £250k in March 2021.
easyMoney believes this rapid growth was very much fuelled by the pandemic house price boom starting in the summer of 2020.
Today, the average house price in the UK is just under £290k but considering the cooling market condition, easyMoney estimates that house prices won’t average at £300k until the end of August 2025.
Commenting on these findings, Jason Ferrando, CEO of easyMoney, has said:
“On a short-term basis, the UK housing market is certainly susceptible to wider economic ebbs, flows, and woes. But when you step back and look at the market’s long-term performance, it’s clear how strong, reliable, and resilient UK housing is as an investment asset.
“As such, if investors are attracted to the property market, we would encourage them to shake off any concerns about the immediate economic landscape and instead look at long-term performance and consistency of the market's performance over the last 50 years.”
