Nicole Bremner

EP143:  We ended 2023 on more positive news that inflation has fallen again to 3.9% from 4.7% in October, which will ease the pressure on the Bank of England to raise rates further. Welcome news to those 2 million people due to remortgage over the next 12 months.House price forecasts at the beginning of 2023 were mostly incorrect. Knight Frank and Savills were forecasting decreases of 10%, and Capital Economics forecast an even more gloomy 15% decrease. Unfortunately, the mainstream media picked up on these negative predictions and scared us into paralysis. The good news is that prices in the UK were much more resilient and only decreased by 1.2% overall.KEY POINTSHouse prices: Nationwide, Halifax and Rightmove have reported: -2.0%, -0.6% and -1.1% over the last 12 months. What is interesting is that monthly figures actually show that prices increased from last month. Nationwide and Halifax reported increases over 3 consecutive months. ONS figures show increases of -1.2% nationally and -3.6% in London. This O