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U.K. house prices recorded double-digit growth for the first time since 2014 last month, as the nation’s booming market showed no signs of cooling.
Prices climbed 10.9% from a year earlier, Nationwide Building Society said Tuesday, with the lender saying the increase has been driven by buyers shifting their preferences in the wake of the pandemic. On the month, prices rose 1.8%, double the pace economists had expected.
The U.K. market has surged since the end of the nation’s first lockdown, defying a wider economic slump. It’s being fueled both by tax incentives and a desire among buyers for extra space. While those figures don’t feed through to Britain’s main inflation indicators, the Bank of England is watching the market as it weighs when to pare back economic stimulus.
“It is shifting housing preferences which is continuing to drive activity,
with people reassessing their needs in the wake of the pandemic,” said…
