GBP, FTSE 100 down as Halifax sees biggest monthly house price drop since June 2021
UK house prices have fallen in three out of the last four months, according to the Halifax house price index. It comes as pressure builds across the UK economy, showing up in a drop in sterling.
(Video Transcript)
UK house prices fall
There’s more evidence today of a slowdown in UK house prices, according to the Halifax House Price Index out today.
It fell by a margin of 0.4% in October month-on-month (MoM). It was the second month in a row where there was an easing in prices across the UK, taking the monthly drop to the lowest since June 2021.
Last month in September, the Halifax said that house prices fell marginally down by 0.1% of the market despite further signs of a slowdown.
Much of this has a lot to do with affordability. Affordability is all about how much people take mortgages against what they can afford in terms of their wages.
GBP
Let's take a look at what's happened with sterling. It's a well-trodden path now about the way in which this has all been reported with this drop. Sterling down to the 10330 level during the darkest days of the last government where we saw Kwasi Kwarteng’s fiscal statement wanting to try and find ways to boost the economy and failing spectacularly.
We have since seen a recovery for sterling. In today's trade we've got sterling down from the highs we had on Friday. That high we had on Friday was boosted by the weakening US dollar. So much of what's happening for sterling is all about the dollar.
But in today's session, this pullback in the housing market really does display the frailties, I think, within the house price of the property sector particularly, and house prices in the way that house prices seem to be moving at the moment.
And there's a lot of speculation that we could see further lower low prints for these house price indices, not just Halifax but also from the nationwide sector that could add extra pressure to sterling.
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