The January House Price Index from the ONS shows that the average house price in the UK was £249,309, reflecting an annual price increase of 7.5%,  down from 8.0% in December 2020.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices in the UK decreased by 0.5% between December 2020 and January 2021, compared with an increase of 0.1% during the same period a year earlier (December 2019 and January 2020).

House price growth was strongest in the North West where prices increased by 12.0% in the year to January 2021. The lowest annual growth was in the West Midlands, where prices increased by 4.7% in the year to January 2021.

Reactions to the latest data were mixed.

Tahir Farooqui, CEO of private rental platform Canopy:

“With a further increase to house prices comes an even bigger gap between hopeful first-time buyers and their new home. While the government is promoting a range of incentives such as 95% mortgages and a tapered end to the stamp duty holiday, it’s not addressing the true problem. House prices are too high and securing an affordable mortgage is a pipe-dream for many.”

Nick Leeming, Chairman of Jackson-Stops:

“The property market continued to boom in January. House prices grew rapidly as buyers paid on average more than £17,000 for homes than they were the same time last year.

“Higher prices continue to be driven by vast numbers of buyers who are looking to snap up stock due to a whole host of lockdown-incentivised lifestyle reasons, coupled with buyers rushing to beat the original stamp duty deadline in March. This created a huge gap in the supply of new property available and demand from buyers. In January, Jackson-Stops data showed that 16 buyers were chasing every newly listed property across the UK.”

Rich Horner, Head of Individual Protection at MetLife:

“For the next few months, at least, buyers will be encouraged to continue their property search and make moves before June. There still remains an element of worry around what the second half of the year looks like as the property market, and society more broadly, returns to a level of normality after more than a year of lockdown. But pent up demand and a supply shortfall will work in the favour of sellers to buoy property prices.

“However, at the lower end of the market a level of reservation could move in. For a significant number the events of the past twelve months have left them in an ambiguous financial position.”

Jonathan Hopper, CEO of Garrington Property Finders:

“Even the reimposition of a national lockdown at the start of January barely dampened the property market’s price momentum.

“True, the annual rate of price growth across the UK has slipped from the blistering to the breathless. But at 7.5% nationwide, and close to double figures in hotspots like Wales, prices are still growing at a prodigious rate.

“New hotspots are emerging and burning bright, with average prices across Northern England rising at well over 8% a year. With the North-South divide now in reverse, prices in the North aren’t so much levelling up as flying up.”

Anthony Codling of Twindig:

“The latest Land Registry House Price data shows the average UK house price in January 2021 was £249,309 an increase of £17,393 over the last 12 months or £1,450 per month.

“It is still incredible that house prices have risen so much during a global pandemic and at a time of such turmoil for the wider UK and global economy.”