Analysis of movement in house price indices

Each month, Halifax, Nationwide and HM Land Registry publish house price indices, tracking the movement in average house prices in the UK. Halifax and Nationwide updates are based on mortgage approvals data, while the UK HPI is a joint production by HM Land Registry, Land and Property Services Northern Ireland, ONS and Registers of Scotland.

House price indices show continued strong growth

Annual movement in UK house prices was up in February 2025, according to both Halifax and Nationwide’s indices.

Halifax⁽¹⁾ reported a 2.9% annual increase in house prices, while Nationwide’s index⁽²⁾ showed an increase of 3.9% on the same period.

Dr David Crosthwaite, Chief Economist at BCIS, said: ‘Recent house price increases are likely to have been fuelled by the stamp duty changes. However, impacts from changes to stamp duty tend to be short-lived.

‘While there has been an increase in activity at the lower end of the market to beat the deadline, I expect demand will soften going forward although house prices are likely to keep rising albeit at a more subdued rate than the recent past.’

On a monthly basis, Halifax said prices were down by 0.1% on January 2025, while Nationwide’s index showed a 0.4% increase.

Amanda Bryden, Head of Mortgages at Halifax, said the figures highlight the ‘delicate balance’ within the UK housing market.

She said: ‘While there’s been talk of a last-minute rush on new mortgages ahead of the changes to stamp duty, inevitably we’ve seen some of the demand that was brought forward start to fade as the April deadline ticks closer, given the time needed to complete a purchase.’

Nationwide’s Chief Economist, Robert Gardner said activity had remained resilient in recent months, despite ongoing affordability challenges.

He said: ‘Looking ahead, the changes to stamp duty at the start of April are likely to generate volatility in transactions in the near term, as buyers bring forward their purchases to avoid the additional tax. This will likely lead to a jump in transactions in March, and a corresponding period of weakness in the following months, as occurred in the wake of previous stamp duty changes.’

The UK HPI⁽³⁾, with the latest data for January 2025, showed a 4.9% increase in house prices compared with January 2024, and a 0.2% increase on December 2024. As the UK HPI figures cover house sales that may have been agreed months previously, there tends to be a lag in the data.

^{Source: Halifax (Methodology), Nationwide (Methodology), UK HPI (Methodology)}

The latest regional data from Nationwide shows Northern Ireland, the North and the North West saw the greatest annual increases in 4Q2024, while East Anglia showed an annual increase of just 0.5% in the same period.

^{Source: Nationwide}

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^{(1) Halifax – House Price Index – February 2025  - here}

^{(2) Nationwide – House price growth remains solid in February  - here}

^{(3) HM Land Registry – UK House Price Index for January 2025  - here}