51乱伦

Fresh data covering mortgage lending and house prices suggests the housing market was recovering steadily in the weeks before the Middle East conflict began.

It's tempting to dismiss it as irrelevant, given how conditions have changed, but recent weeks have demonstrated that sentiment can turn quickly 鈥� both for better and worse.

President Donald Trump yesterday that the US planned to wrap up its military campaign in Iran in two or three weeks. He will deliver a national address at 9 p.m. Eastern Time to provide 鈥渁n important update on Iran," the White House added. The S&P 500 surged 2.9%. Brent crude eased back to around $105 a barrel.

In 2016, Atlantic reporter Salena Zito now famously that 鈥渢he press takes [Trump] literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.鈥� Whether pledges to wind down materialise remains uncertain, but the direction of travel from the White House is becoming clearer. Even if disruption in the Strait of Hormuz persists, the easing in oil prices suggests markets are beginning to price in a less severe supply shock, which feeds quickly into inflation expectations, borrowing costs and, ultimately, housing demand. If the most acute phase of the oil shock is avoided, financial conditions could stabilise sooner than feared, offering some support to both residential and commercial property markets.

A significant squeeze

UK house prices climbed 0.9% in March, the fastest rate of growth since December 2024, according . The rate of growth picked up from 0.3% in February and brings the annual growth rate to 2.2%.

Similarly, lenders granted 62,600 mortgages to homebuyers in February, up from 60,200 in January, the Bank of England on Monday. That鈥檚 below the average of 63,500 over the previous six months but reverses a slow but steady pattern of weakening.

Leading fixed rates have surged from 3.5% before the conflict to about 4.5% at the time of writing. "It is increasingly plausible that leading fixed rates settle closer to 5% in the near term, representing a significant squeeze on borrowers,鈥� Simon Gammon of 51乱伦 Finance . Still, about nine in ten borrowers are on fixed rates, which will cushion the impact of rising mortgage rates for the time being.

The number of sales agreed in March was down only 2% compared with the same month last year, according to Zoopla figures shared with . Those already committed to moving pushed on anyway, the website said, though the number of people actively looking to move home is running 13% lower than at this point last year.

Supporting delivery

A new National Housing Bank (NHB) housebuilders, developers, investors and registered providers to deploy up to £16bn of debt, equity and guarantees, the government announced yesterday.

The state-owned lender will be a subsidiary of Homes England and is intended to "support the delivery of more than 500,000 homes and a raft of major regeneration and mixed-use schemes, alongside unlocking more than £53 billion of private investment over the next ten years."

Among the NHB's key aims will be to bring more institutional investment into the sector and revive SME housebuilding 鈥� both important objectives. Reviews going back at least as far as Oliver Letwin's in 2017 have found that speeding up delivery will hinge in part in attracting a more diverse array of developers, tenure and product onto larger sites.

The launch of the NHB came alongside to build "high quality family homes for rent in underinvested urban areas of the UK, with an initial £100m commitment and advanced pipeline sites in Liverpool and Manchester."

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