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A few weeks ago, I told you that my mum and aunt were moving house. Sadly it all fell through. But we were amazed at the brisk business of the housing market in our area. And it got me wondering – how has Covid affected property prices in the UK?
How Has Covid Affected Property Prices?
If anything, here in Leeds property prices have risen since lockdown. Or at least been quite stable. Considering that we are probably entering an economic depression, I would have thought that people would be concerned over wasting money.
But quite the opposite seems to be true. It does seem that people are still keen to move. Why is this? I took a closer look.
Lockdown Has Affected How People Feel About Their Houses
People’s opinions about where they live has definitely been affected by lockdown. Being confined to their homes and working from home has made people look at what their home has to offer, and reassess if this the best for them long term.
People have even decided to relocate to more rural locations. Especially in the south west of the UK. Contrary to all ideas that house prices may slump, house prices have been at an all time high.
The Market Hasn’t Slowed
Despite the tough economic environment, house prices have just kept rising. As people are working from home and are reassessing their house needs then the demand to move house has increased.
Also, the suspension of stamp duty did encourage people to move. The UK housing market is expecting an extra 100,000 extra home sales in 2021 due to this tax holiday, which doesn’t end until March 2021.
Will growth slow in the future though if the virus hit and economic decline leads to job losses? Almost certainly so. And who knows what impact the Brexit transition will have on the market come January 2021?
But for the time being there certainly doesn’t look to be any slump in house buying.
You Can Even Go Virtual House Hunting
As you would expect, the pandemic has brought out even more ingenious methods of house hunting remotely. Not only can you go online and look at the floor plan, photos and local area statistics, there are even virtual reality tours of houses for sale available.
Because of the obvious travel restrictions in place stopping you from looking at a house in Cardiff if you live in London, for instance, you can now use a VR headset to take a virtual guided tour of a new property. Some new build developers even have this budgeted into their developments as standard, as they have a lot of new houses to sell of roughly the same plans and layout.
Planning For A House Move
Obviously, no matter what your intentions are over the next few months are, whether you decide to move or not, you will need to plan carefully before deciding to make the leap into buying a new home.
One way to do this is by looking at your finances carefully. And by using a mortgage calculator you can find out what your basic monthly payments will be for the interest rates and term of your mortgage. Only by doing this can you truly make sure that you have the finances necessary to be happy and secure in your new home.
Are you thinking of moving house? Good luck in finding the dream home that you are seeking. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this article. Have you found the same in your region? Comment below or go find me on my social media channels.
I was quite shocked when I saw people had sold houses and managed to purchase them. I’d thought mortgages would have been affected as there were some issues with first-time buyer mortgages (had seen it through MSE) but most people spent a considerable amount of time with their house and likely had enough.
I’ve seen people had problems with remortgaging though, likely due to economic struggles.