There are so many house indices that they can create confusion. Last week, the Halifax house price index showed a small monthly fall. This week the government’s own index, the HPI, shows that prices rose by 7.8 per cent in the year to June, down from 12.8 per cent in the year to May. That suggests a slowing market, but then that is hardly surprising. June 2021 marked the end of Rishi Sunak’s stamp duty holiday, which created a rush of completions as buyers sought to avoid a bill of thousands of pounds. This month’s HPI marks the first time that bulge in sales has dropped out of the annual figures.
This ought to be a warning sign. In a property boom you don’t just see prices rise, you see volumes of sales surge, too
The HPI is a bit backward-looking – it is based on completed sales, derived from land registry data.
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