Soaring house prices heap pressure on fixer Rayner

Sorry to make a soggy start to the week even more miserable, but it brings bad news for homebuyers. The housing market has taken a shot of adrenaline and performed a season’s best in the high jump.

- JAMES MOORE

Building society Nationwide reported a November surge in the annual growth rate to 3.7 per cent, from 2.4 per cent in October. Prices are now rising at the fastest clip since November 2022. With the monthly increase standing at 1.2 per cent, the cost of buying a home is now within a hair’s breadth (1 per cent) of its all-time peak.

The average price now stands at £268,140, which compares to a median average annual income of just below £38,000. It seems all but certain that new records will be set in the new year, if not before.

Nationwide recently trumpeted itself as the “first major lender to offer first-time buyers [the] ability to borrow six times income, up to 95 per cent loan-to-value”.

There’s nothing like the UK housing market to age you. When my partner and I stepped onto the ladder, it topped out at 3.5 times, a maximum we didn’t want any part of. Conservative financial choices like that aren’t easily available today. If Nationwide, which is about as far from being a cowboy lender as it is possible to get, is the first to offer this sort of loan, it surely won’t be the last. This is the inevitable result of prices shooting for the moon.