Housing Market Economics

In UK economics, the housing market refers to the national supply and demand for houses. Key metrics of the housing market are average house prices and their trends. The UK housing market refers to all housing, including privately owned homes, privately rented and local authority rented accommodation, and managed properties.

A change in house prices affects the value of household wealth, creating a positive or negative wealth effect. A positive wealth effect means that, following a rise in house prices, the ratio of the market value of the property to the debt on that property (i.e. mortgage) rises, creating an increase in equity. This can trigger housing equity withdrawal and can be a significant boost to consumer spending.

The real estate market is continually affected by many different variables which make house prices go up and down. You can see minor shifts in prices each month, however, the large, significant changes in the housing market caused by natural fluctuations in the market sometimes show only after 3-6 months.

Depending on the factor that is pushing the price up or down, the speed of response of the housing market will vary. For example, when the first lockdown restrictions were introduced in the UK back in March 2020, the housing market was fast to reflect that change, dropping by two percentage points in April – such a sharp dip from 2.7 to 0.7 has not been experienced in a few years prior. On the other side of these lockdown restrictions, as things began to open up slowly, the housing market experienced an upsurge. After the initial increase to 2.0 in July 2020, the house prices shot up to 7.6 percent between July 2020 and November 2020.

The real estate market refers to the assets made up of properties and the land that they sit on. In the United Kingdom, the real estate market includes buying and selling real estate, renting or leasing real estate, or performing real estate activities on either a contract or fee basis.

The real estate market can be divided into residential and commercial and is a major part of the UK economy. Just like any asset, the housing market is also affected by supply and demand fluctuations. The law of supply and demand dictates the equilibrium price of a property. A low supply of housing inventory may drive prices up, which is what tends to result in bidding wars. A specific property may be in demand by multiple parties who all try to outbid each other by increasing their purchase price offer.

The bidding war ends when the seller accepts one of the offers, which then also removes a unit from the available supply. When there is a high demand for properties in a particular city or state combined with a lack of supply of quality properties, the prices of houses tend to rise.

On the other hand, when a weak economy and an oversupply of properties lead to low or no demand for housing, the prices of houses tend to fall.

The global financial crisis in 2008 saw financial markets lose up to 30% of their value over a short time period. This period also ranks amongst the worst in the global real estate market, with the UK housing market crashing almost 20%. It was the largest annual drop on record.

There were some variations in the different regions and parts of the UK. While Northern Ireland recorded a 34% drop in prices, the Scottish market dropped by just 8%. In England the largest fall was in East Anglia, where prices were down by 16.6%, followed by London and the south-east where prices dropped by more than 15%. The smallest drop was in the north of the country, where prices were down 11% year-on-year.

The variability of the housing market has a direct impact on the economy. When the prices of houses rise, this encourages spending as people’s assets are worth more. With increased spending, more money is being pumped into the economy leading to economic growth. This refers to the positive wealth effect.

The positive wealth effect also suggests that in such scenarios these homeowners are able to release some equity by borrowing more against the increased value of their property.

On the flip side, when house prices are falling, the economy is showing us a negative wealth effect. When house prices fall, people tend to cut their spending as consumer confidence is affected negatively. As a result, the economic growth shrinks and may eventually lead to a recession. Falling house prices cause more people to be trapped in negative equity (a situation where your house is worth less than an outstanding mortgage). This causes a fall in spending and precludes any opportunity for equity withdrawal. Additionally, falling house prices have a negative impact on the construction of new houses.