PropertyPal Housing Market Update: Q2 2023

Leading Northern Ireland property portal, PropertyPal, has released its quarterly report highlighting insights and trends shaping the Northern Ireland housing market over Q2 of 2023. 

The report can be accessed via the following link: https://bit.ly/3OFHMUh

Key callouts from the report include:

• The average property price is £200,600, a 7.6% annual increase and a 1.4% quarterly increase.
• The average rent is £791 per month, a 9.7% annual increase and a 2.4% quarterly increase.
• The average new home property price is £234,000, a 4.8% annual increase and a -0.4% quarterly decrease.
• The Lisburn & Castlereagh area has witnessed the largest annual increase of 9.9%, with the average property price in this area now £236,700.
• The average days on market for houses to reach ‘sale agreed’ is 43 days.

Jordan Buchanan, Chief Operating Officer at PropertyPal commented:

“Market conditions have seen a gradual slowdown in the rate of price growth and transaction activity in the past three months, albeit, both remain at broadly stable levels.

“A sharp increase in borrowing costs has continued to weaken affordability for mortgage buyers. However, last week saw the first sign of inflationary pressures easing as both headline and underlying core inflation fell at a faster rate than forecasters’ expectations. Markets still expect further rate rises, but the path of inflation is critical to this. Nonetheless, last week’s positive sign has already resulted in downward movement in swap rates, the financing mechanism used to underpin mortgage pricing. This should feed through into mortgage rates stabilising, if not falling in the near term.

“On pricing, a softening inflationary environment should naturally lead to price growth slowing. But more so, weak consumer confidence and affordability pressures should continue to push prices down. This remains a bigger factor in Southern England markets and is reflected in several national house price publications which show Northern Ireland continuing to see stable prices and leading UK regional performance.”

Jordan continued:

“The outlook still remains highly uncertain for the market and volatility is expected with each major economic data release. House prices have proved more resilient than perhaps expected given the scale of interest rate rises but transaction activity has fallen and is expected to continue. House hunters remain engaged with strong enquiry levels being sent to estate agents for appropriately valued properties and on average are achieving ‘sale agreed’ status over 1 week faster than pre-covid levels.”