U.K. house price growth eases in December 2018, housing market likely to weaken further in early 2019

U.K. house price growth decelerated at the end of 2018. In line with the downbeat message from recent housing market surveys and decelerating economic growth, the official house price figures released today indicated that growth eased by 0.2 percentage point to 2.5 percent year-on-year in December. This is the lowest rate since July 2013.

Prices were again down in London, by 0.6 percent year-on-year, a rate matching the average fall in the past nine months. However, there was also a marked softening in prices in the North East. All other regions saw prices continuing to rise compared with a year earlier in December.

“But not least given persistent Brexit uncertainty we think conditions in the housing market will have softened further at the start of this year. And tomorrow's RICS house price survey is likely to show the headline index shifting further into negative territory in January to its weakest reading since mid-2012”, said Daiwa Capital Markets Research in a report.

At 19:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of British Pound was neutral at -6.67344, while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 32.2378 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex