Despite fears of a slump in the housing market, the property owners of Britain are continuing to bump up asking prices, according to a survey.
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The average asking price of homes put up for sale increased by 0.8% to 365,357 $443,250 in March, compared to the previous month, according to data from Rightmove.
Sliding energy prices and persistently high employment levels in the UK have helped ease worries that the economy will tumble into a long recession, which would hamper activity in the property market.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove's director of property science, said the market continues to see stability and confidence after the spring season as it recovers from the turbulence at the end of 2022.
The Bank of England has hinted that it will pause its rapid cycle of interest-rate increases in three decades, which would give a break to those who need to take out a mortgage to finance their purchases.
The average rate on a five-year fixed mortgage is now 4.65%, a decline from 4.75% last month and well below October's peak of 5.89% in the turmoil following former Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng's mini-budget.
They are still higher than a year ago, altering the calculus of buying a home. The UK's budget officials predicted last week that values would fall 10% from their peak in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Rightmove's data may indicate more widely-watched figures from mortgage lenders who report on agreed sales rather than asking prices. In January, house prices fell at their sharpest annual pace since 2012, as higher rates deter buyers, according to the Nationwide Building Society. Halifax said prices are at the sharpest pace since June.
The number of market valuation appraisals in the UK was 16.4% above the five-year average in February, according to Knight Frank data. The number of new prospective buyers was 11% higher, suggesting supply outpaced demand last month.
The recovery was led by typical first-time buyer properties with two bedrooms or fewer, according to Rightmove. The average asking prices are now just 500 below last year s record.
Rightmove said the sales of these properties were 4% less than the same period in March, which was due to the Pandemic.
Owners looking to offload larger homes were facing more difficulties, as they were looking to offload larger homes. Rightmove said that the sales of top-of-the-ladder properties are 10% behind the same period in 2019 despite asking prices climbed by 1.2% on a month earlier in the day. They are 13% behind in the second-stepper sector.
Despite the month-on-month rise in average asking prices, which was followed by a big increase in January and no change in February, prices are still 5,800 below October's peak.
The annual rate of change has slowed, falling to 3% in March from 3.9% in February.
The market's pace reached an unsustainable level in the last two years, and was on track to slow down to a more normal level, though the speed of this slowdown to normality was accelerated by September's mini-Budget, said Bannister.
While higher mortgage rates and economic challenges raise challenges, many potential home movers who were sidelined by the frenetic bidding wars of the last two years will find that a slower-paced market gives them time to plan and secure their next move.