Zoopla has recently published its August Market Briefing detailing the current data and trends from the UK residential property market:

On Rental Market – Zoopla announces it expects rental growth to ease across the UK by the end of the year, with average rents outside London ending the year at +1%.

The demand for rental property is still outpacing the supply of new homes to rent in many parts of the country, and this is supporting rental growth.

However, the gap is narrowing, which will start to put downward pressure on rents over the rest of the year. Zoopla expects annual rental growth outside London, currently at 2.2%, to reach around 1% by the end of the year, although there will be areas of outperformance. Six cities and towns in the UK are still seeing rental growth of more than 4%.

Meanwhile, Mortgage loans for first-time buyers have not bounced back to pre-COVID levels, but there are competitive deals available.

As demand rises in the sales market, mortgage applications are also rising, according to the latest data from the Bank of England. David Ross, CEO of Hometrack, the leading provider of insight and intelligence to the mortgage market says: “While the hangover from COVID lingers, our data shows mortgage applications continued to rise in July as buyer demand increased by 20% on the year.”

The number of loans available for some buyers has fallen in recent months; however, with the number of mortgages available for first-time buyers around half the levels seen pre-COVID, according to data from Moneyfacts.

Help to Buy scheme Policy Update

The Government has extended the Help to Buy (H2B) scheme for buyers where COVID delayed the completion of their new-build home. The new deadline for build complete is February 2021, rather than the initial deadline of December 2020.

Click here to read the full report.