Real Estate Has Never Been So Expensive in the UK

 Despite the Covid-19, property prices have reached a new record across the Channel. But they progress less quickly.

Residential property prices, far from slowing down with the novel coronavirus pandemic, reached new highs late in the year in the UK. The average price of a home reached 253,374 pounds (281,000 euros) in December, according to an index of the Halifax real estate group, an increase of 6% over one year. By comparison, in France, it stands at 248,437 euros, according to the Century 21 real estate network. "This is a notably high performance in view of the fears initially linked to the pandemic," notes Halifax.

Over one month, the increase in real estate prices slowed significantly at the end of 2020 compared to November, when it reached 1%, according to the same study. The past year first saw real estate prices fall in the wake of the pandemic and containment, then rebound sharply when real estate agencies were able to reopen after the start of the lifting of the first restrictions in mid-May, and the suspension of the tax on commercial transactions which has boosted demand Real estate agents quoted by Halifax note that the uptrend could continue until the reinstatement of the commercial transaction tax in March, thanks to "mortgage agreements at the highest in 13 years" and real estate rates still at the top. lower.

Setback to come in 2021

From that date, the new containment measures and the rise in unemployment expected in the coming months should weigh on the recovery and therefore slow down real estate prices during 2021. The real estate ad site Rightmove observed in July a "mini - post-containment real estate boom ”with the largest number of sales agreements signed in more than ten years, totaling 37 billion pounds.

A surge fueled by a movement of "exodus" from the capital, with a drop in prices in London (-2%) and an increase almost everywhere else, and records in seven regions including Devon and Cornwall, in the southwest of the country, continues Rightmove in a monthly study published Monday. Migration was encouraged by the search for space after confinement and enabled by the rise of teleworking.