House prices edged up in April despite the stamp duty increase and Donald Trump’s tariff war as Britain’s housing market continued to be “remarkably stable”.
UK house prices rose, on average, by 0.3 per cent last month, according to Halifax, one of the country’s biggest mortgage lenders: an improvement on the 0.5 per cent drop it recorded in March.
Compared with this time last year, prices are up 3.2 per cent, which is the fastest rate of annual inflation recorded by Halifax so far in 2025. It estimates that the average price of a UK home is now £297,781, about £1,000 shy of the record high hit in January.
Prices are still rising fastest in Northern Ireland, where the average value of a house has increased by 8.1 per cent over the past 12 months. By contrast, in the southwest of England, one of the big winners of the pandemic’s “race for space”, prices are up only 0.9 per cent year-on-year.
The Halifax data surprised economists, who had been expecting prices to edge lower by about 0.1 per cent last month, which is what other recent reports have suggested.
Nationwide, another mortgage lender, estimated last week that house prices fell in April by 0.6 per cent and the latest survey of estate agents by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors also pointed to a small drop in prices.
They put the fall in prices down to people having brought their moves forward to try to avoid the increase in stamp duty last month, which added as much as £11,250 to some first-time buyers’ purchases, as well as the increase of geopolitical and economic uncertainty caused by Trump’s trade war.
Despite the monthly variances, most indicators suggest that the house prices have not moved much either way over the past six months or so.
“We know the stamp duty changes prompted a surge in transactions in the early part of this year, as buyers rushed to beat the tax-rise deadline,” Amanda Bryden, head of mortgages at Halifax, said. “However, this didn’t lead to a significant increase in property prices, with the last six months characterised by a stability in prices rarely seen since the pandemic.”
She acknowledged that the market remained slower than during the post-lockdown mini-boom of 2021 and 2022 but thinks that buyer activity is stronger than in 2023 and 2024, when the market was in effect paralysed by the rapid increase in mortgage rates.
“Mortgage rates have continued to fall, with most lenders now offering rates below 4 per cent,” Bryden said. “Coupled with positive earnings growth that has outpaced broader inflation, these factors have helped to steadily improve affordability for many buyers. Overall, the market continues to show resilience despite a subdued economic environment and risks from geopolitical developments.”
Alex Kerr, UK economist at Capital Economics, said that Halifax’s April estimates were “much better than expected” and suggest that the market has slowed over the past couple of months because of the “temporary influence of the rise in stamp duty thresholds on April 1, rather than a slump in underlying demand”. He expects house prices to rise 3.5 per cent in 2025, followed by growth of 4.5 per cent in 2026.