This was down on the 10 per cent yearly change recorded in December.
Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients, said: “The housing market continues to perform strongly with house prices continuing to rise, due to lack of stock. Those buyers who didn’t make their move last year are still keen to do so, assuming they can find the right property, and take advantage of mortgage rates while they remain low.”
Samuel Gee, director at Manning Gee Investments, added: “Prices may have dipped very slightly but the market is still powering on.
“It’s an unsustainable situation with first-time buyers simply priced out of the market. Something somewhere will have to give and interest rate rises could turn the current property bull market into a bear.”
Regional differences
The average house price in England rose by 0.1 per cent in January to £291,560. Annually, this was a rise of 9.4 per cent.
Within England, the East Midlands had the greatest increase in its average property value over the last 12 months with a movement of 11.6 per cent, and also saw the greatest monthly growth, up 1.8 per cent. Average house prices in the region stood at £235,503 in January.
London saw the lowest annual price growth with an increase of 2.2 per cent, but also the most significant monthly decline with a drop of 1.8 per cent.
Mike Scott, chief analyst at Yopa, said: “This 2.2 per cent rise will be partly in response to London workers being able to live further from the office as they are now working more from home, and partly a continuation of a trend that started in 2016, with slower growth in London after its house prices had grown much more rapidly than the rest of the country for the previous several years.”
Despite this, property values remain higher than anywhere else in England at £510,102.
Wales saw average house prices upped by 1.3 per cent from December to January to £206,251, with an annual rise of 13.9 per cent. In Scotland, house prices rose annually by 10.8 per cent to £182,786 while Northern Ireland recorded a house price increase of 7.9 per cent over the year to Q4, reaching £159,151.
Lewis Shaw, founder of Shaw Financial Services, added: “To quote the Game of Thrones: Winter is coming. I warned 12 months ago that we had a nasty recession coming due to Covid and Brexit. Nevertheless, prices kept rising and mortgage balances grew with a frenzy of activity made worse by greedy, near parasitical estate agents.
“Now we’re about to reap what a lot of people have sown, and it’s going to get very ugly indeed – and this is before the impact of Ukraine was factored in. Will house prices reduce? Unlikely as the structural supply-side issue gets worse by the day, which will keep values buoyant.”
He said: “However, with the massive, and I mean enormous inflation in energy, food and fuel, unless we have large-scale government intervention, there will be a rise in homeowners in default as they choose between paying their mortgage or food and fuel bills.
“Karl Marx said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, secondly as farce. We’re in for both at the same time.”
Prices by property type
Detached properties in the UK saw a 12.6 per cent leap over the last year, with the average detached house costing £431,680. Terraced houses recorded an average price of £221,680, up nine per cent on last year while flats and maisonettes came in at £224,186, seeing the smallest annual difference of 5.1 per cent.
The average price for a new-build property in the UK surged by 25.4 per cent to £367,219 annually while existing resold homes saw a yearly increase of 8.6 per cent to £264,684.
Buyer type
Former owner occupiers purchased homes worth an average of £321,360, a 10.6 per cent annual increase. First-time buyers purchased homes with an average value of £227,846 in January, an 8.9 per cent increase.
Emma Cox, managing director of Real Estate at Shawbrook, said: “House prices continue to challenge any sense of normality despite rising inflation and the soaring cost of living forcing a reality check to buyers’ budgets. Record prices and undiminished demand is putting the pressure on buyers that aren’t seeing their money go as far across the board.
“Yet the market remains firmly in favour of those with capital available and looking to add to portfolios or let out properties. Although, recent hikes in energy bills and running costs will have to be factored in, socially responsible landlords will be aware of the changes they can make to their portfolios in order to limit the impact of energy price rises in the future for tenants.”
She added: “The market is in desperate need of a steady stream of high quality, affordable, housing to rebalance the market and help those struggling to purchase a property to steady house prices that currently see the sky as the limit. It is important that the government delivers on its Levelling Up Agenda to make the path to homeownership possible and improve living standards.”
