Capital Economics expects prices to fall by 12% through to 2024, the Centre for Economic Business Research believes that prices will fall by 8-10% during 2023, and Zoopla says that if the market falls by 5%, we will see most of the “current over-valuation reversed by December 2023”
The truth is that some or none of these pricing forecasts could be correct, as it is ultimately the prices at which properties are sold that dictate these figures. And those ultimate sales prices are dependent on demand which varies considerably across markets. Heightened demand will drive a property’s price above its worth, while less demand has the opposite effect. Markets adapt in response to this demand, which puts a lot of the forecasting onus on a mortgage environment that translates prospective buyers, into actual buyers.