The housing market in 2022

Posted on 23rd December 2021

Despite the global pandemic, 2021 was a pretty good year for the housing market, as homeworking led to thousands of people reassessing their requirements.

However, it was fuelled in part by Government initiatives such as the stamp duty holiday, which have now ended – so what does the market have in store for 2022?

Well, with yet another wave of Covid-19 casting a shadow over Christmas, it’s hard to predict anything with any degree of certainty, but there are signs the market will return to some sort of normality over the next 12 months.

Mortgage lending

According to UK Finance, the banking trade body, sales were so strong in 2021 that it was set to become a record year for mortgage lending.

It predicted that gross mortgage lending would peak this year at £316bn – an increase of a huge 31 per cent compared with 2020 – before falling back to £281bn in 2022.

However, it did also predict that, as the fallout from the pandemic continues, mortgage arrears and repossessions would rise over the coming year, forecasting arrears at 26 per cent higher in 2022, at 102,000, compared with around 80,800 in 2021. Home repossessions were also expected to climb by 267 per cent to reach 7,700 in 2022, compared with an estimated 2,100 this year.

House prices

Over the course of 2021, the average house price rose by more than 10 per cent, buoyed by increased demand.

However, according to Rightmove, one sign of a return to normal service in the market was its finding that the market had experienced its usual “December dip”, with the average asking price of a home falling by 0.7% – or £2,234 – over the past month.

It added that it expected 2022 to still be busy market in 2022, forecasting prices to rise by another five per cent over the course of 2022.

Buying and selling

It is still very much a seller’s market out there, and that looks set to continue into the next year.

In fact, as we enter the final weeks of 2021, seven out of ten properties advertised on Rightmove are currently marked as sold subject to contract – the highest figure ever.

If you want to take advantage of the still-booming housing market, get in touch with our friendly team today.