LONDON (Reuters) - Asking prices for British homes between mid-May and early June rose by 0.8 percent compared with a month before, the biggest rise for the time of year since 2015, as housing remains in short supply, property website Rightmove said on Monday.
The increase is less than the 1.8 percent recorded a month earlier but still takes asking prices 7.5 percent above their level in early March 2020, before Britain went into its first Covid lockdown.
“Buyer demand remains very strong, though with an all-time low in the number of properties available for sale and new stock at higher-than-ever average prices, there are early signs of a slowing in the frenetic pace,” said Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data.
Rightmove, which says it advertises 95 per cent of homes for sale in Britain, collected the data between May 9 and June 12.
British house prices surged last year despite the pandemic as many richer people sought more space to work from home, and the government cut stamp duty to reverse an initial slump in sales early in the pandemic.