UK house price growth starting to falter

Property website giant Rightmove has today confirmed that UK property price growth is starting to falter, falling from 6.1% annual growth in February to 5.3%. This would appear to confirm recent concerns regarding the UK property market and the significant increase in property purchases prior to the end of the stamp duty concession. It is unclear whether extreme weather conditions have also impacted upon the UK property market in the short-term but we are at something of a crossroads regarding UK property prices.

The next two or three months are vital to the UK property market because if the suspected downturn continues it will be difficult to turn around in the short to medium term. Once buyers begin to pull back from the market and sellers rush to sell their properties at any price this could prompt a very difficult and a very damaging downward spiral.

It will be interesting to see the Bank of England and the UK government's reaction to this possible downturn in the property market which might even prompt a new property stamp duty concessionary period. The weapon of UK interest rates is effectively defunct at the moment because with rates at 0.5% they are probably as low as they will go.