Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von Grundherr, commented:

“We find ourselves in a dramatically different place to this time last year and while shorter term growth rates are starting to show signs of a seasonal slowdown, house prices continue to hit record highs.

A second national lockdown is unlikely to have any impact on current house price trends with the market remaining open for business and buyer demand remaining strong.

While the hopper continues to overflow with a huge number of pending transactions waiting to complete, there should remain a consistent level of house price growth to carry the market through Christmas and well into 2021.”

Managing Director of Barrows and Forrester, James Forrester, commented:

“While the nation continues to wobble over the economic turmoil posed by the current pandemic and a second lockdown, the UK housing market is using these headwinds of uncertainty to fill her sails as house prices continue to climb ever higher.

Homebuyers continue to overrun the market and for many, the task of buying or selling may well have provided a welcome distraction to the daily doom and gloom of Covid and so we haven’t seen the decline that many market naysayers so keenly awaited.

With the Bank of England announcing further economic support, we should see a degree of smooth sailing as the year ends.”