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Search Acumen comments on ONS/Land Registry UK house price index, July 2016

Search Acumen200 [1]Andy Sommerville, director of Search Acumen [2], comments:

“Today’s release has shown the strong growth in UK house prices since 2013 continued throughout July despite a highly unstable political context in the immediate weeks following the referendum.

“The market seems to have been more robust than many had forecasted as July, the first full month since the vote, saw prices rise across the country by a further 0.4% since June.”

“Whilst we can be thankful for relative house price stability since the referendum, the continuation of the significant growth we have seen over the past three years continues to push the government’s housing targets further into the distance.

“Rising prices are symptomatic of our insufficient supply of homes, and as we see under a 1% year-on-year change in Green Belt usage revealed by DCLG last week, this will not be solved without reforming our planning system. As we look ahead to the autumn statement the government should push ahead with further planning reform to allow housebuilders to utilise our unused land and meet the rising demand.”