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GB: Nationwide House Price Index
| Consensus | Actual | Previous | |
| Month over Month | 0.3% | 0.7% | 0.7% |
| Year over Year | 0.7% | 1.2% | -0.2% |
Highlights
House prices again easily beat expectations in February. A second successive 0.7 percent monthly rise in the Nationwide's measure was more than double the market consensus and large enough to lift the annual inflation rate to 1.2 percent, its first positive print in more than a year. Prices are now around 3 percent less than the record peak seen in the summer of 2022.
Mortgage applications have strengthened significantly in recent months and the Nationwide noted that a fall in borrowing costs had provided some support for demand. Even so, the lender sees a clouded near-term outlook due to uncertainty over the future path of interest rates and a generally subdued real economy. In addition, house prices remain very high relative to earnings.
Nonetheless, today's update underlines the surprising resilience of the housing market in the face of what has been aggressive BoE tightening. More generally, it puts the UK RPI at 29 and the RPI-P at 25, both measures showing economic activity running quite well ahead of forecasts and so further reducing pressure on the BoE MPC to ease later this month.
Market Consensus Before Announcement
Prices are seen up 0.3 percent on the month following a 0.7 percent gain in January.
Definition
The Nationwide House Price Index (HPI) provides house price information derived from Nationwide lending data for properties at the post survey approval stage. Nationwide house prices are mix adjusted; that is, they track a representative house price over time rather than the simple average price.