The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 3£1M
COVER: VIBRIANT/ALAMY. THIS PAGE: PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY; SIMON RANSHAW; DAVID CABRERAKENT
This architecturally striking five-bedroom house is in a
detached, four-roundel oast house. Expect vaulted ceilings
with honey-coloured oak beams. It is about half an hour
from Tunbridge Wells. 01892 640316, hamptons.co.ukSHROPSHIRE
Wood Farm House is over 500 years old and has been
extensively refurbished. It has a holiday let annexe and
is only eight miles from Whitchurch for direct trains to
London. 01384 958811, fineandcountry.com
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
This five-bedroom Georgian home in Brackley is being
let on Airbnb. It’s now on sale with no chain, with a cellar
and a third of an acre to call your own. 01295 239666,
fineandcountry.comOXFORDSHIRE
A beautiful church, great schools and countryside views
await in the village of Frieth near Henley-on-Thames,
where this five-bedroom house at the end of a gated
driveway is on sale. 07369 211735, fineandcountry.com
DERBYSHIRE
Space, light and volume: this five-bedroom converted
church in Belper marries grade II listed ecclesiastical
features with mod cons including a cinema room, gym
and sauna. burchelledwards.co.uk, 01773 822622LONDON W13
Get your foot on the ladder in west London with a shared
ownership apartment at SO Resi Ealing. Each flat has a
balcony, hyperoptic broadband and access to a residents’
roof terrace. soresi.co.uk
ESSEX
Hassobury Manor is a Victorian gothic house set in mature
parkland in Manuden, near Bishop’s Stortford. Hobart, a
4,300 sq ft, five-bedroom slice of the manor, is on sale.
020 3687 3071, inigo.comLONDON WC1
Russell Court is an art deco mansion block in Bloomsbury.
This two-bedroom flat is decorated with a cacophony of
botanical prints from Mind the Gap and papers by Phillip
Jeffries. 020 3687 3071, inigo.com
£2.5M
£1.5M £900,000
FROM
£105,000
£645,000
£745,000 £1.6M
Savills revised its house
price growth forecasts for
2021 from 4 per cent to 9 per
cent. “That reflected the
extension to the stamp duty
holiday, the relaxation of
social distancing and a
noticeable shortage of stock
available on the market,”
Cook says.
Black swan events —
unforeseen incidents with
far-reaching consequences
— are a problem for
forecasters. In 2007 the
consensus of opinion was
that house prices would
correct in 2008 — that after
having risen rapidly they
would stagnate. They fell by
14 per cent as the global
financial crisis hit.
However, putting aside
2008, house price forecasts
weren’t too far off the mark
until 2020 (see graph).
So what about the
predictions for 2022, which
range from a fall of 0.6 per
cent (Oxford Economics) to
a rise of 5.6 per cent
(Citigroup)? The median
consensus is that house
prices will rise by 2 per cent.
The forecasters have
mainly focused on housing
supply and demand,
inflation and interest rates.
Few forecasters would have
been surprised by last
week’s rise in the Bank of
England base rate from
0.1 per cent to 0.25 per cent,
but uncertainty remains
about how far rates will rise.
“There is a heightened
degree of uncertainty now
that forecasts factor in
expected increases in the
bank rate, perhaps above
1 per cent, given that rates
have remained below this
level for over a decade,” says
Karl Thompson, an
economist at Cebr.
In short, predictions are
informed guesses as to what
will happen; a guide to the
trend at best. I wouldn’t
stake your home on them.MARKET WATCH
HOW ACCURATE ARE HOUSE PRICE PREDICTIONS?
House price growth
Forecast Actual2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020
Source: The Treasury10%-15-10-505CAN WE TRUST THE
HOUSE PRICE FORECASTS?
CAROL
LEWIS@CarolLewis101I
n June last year the
Centre for Economics and
Business Research (Cebr)
predicted that house
prices would fall by
8.7 per cent in 2020 — they
rose by 8.5 per cent,
according to the Office for
National Statistics. In
September last year it
predicted that property
prices would drop by almost
14 per cent in 2021. Again, it
was proved wrong.
Cebr, like most
forecasters, didn’t foresee
the introduction of the
furlough scheme, deferral of
mortgage payments, the
stamp duty holiday and the
post-lockdown race for
space. As a consequence,
most forecasters have
spent the past 18 months
revising their predictions
with each twist and turn
of government policy.
“At the end of 2020 we
were roughly in line with the
consensus in expecting
house prices to dip in 2021.
But policy was then changed
to be far more generous
than we anticipated, which
caused the usual
relationships between
house prices and the
economy to break down,”
says Andrew Wishart, a
property economist with the
consultancy Capital
Economics.
Lucian Cook, the head of
research at Savills estate
agency, adds: “Changes in
housing policy and
regulation have the ability to
blow things off course,
whether it is Help to Buy,
mortgage regulation or
stamp duty holidays.”
Halfway through this year