While house prices “need to balance out”, Movin Legal key relationships director Emma Hall says she doesn’t expect “a massive crash in the property market”.

The comments come following the latest Halifax house price index figures, which revealed the cost of a typical home edged down to £293,835 in September, 0.1% less than the record high of £293,992 reported in August.

Speaking on the Knowledge Bank Lenders Live panel, Hall suggests that house prices won’t crash “because it is too important to the government for many reasons”.

Hall says: “The government can’t afford for the property market to crash and let prices drop by 20%, 30% or 40% because it’s not affordable to the economy right now.”

Instead, Hall believes the government will “step in because if this government wants to stay in power, they need the votes of that middle England”.

Meanwhile, Lucra Mortgages director Michael Aldridge notes that having 10% to 15% growth year-on-year post-pandemic is “phenomenal”. 

Aldridge says: “Some kind of cooldown is not a bad thing from those dizzy heights. It’s very difficult to say because you wouldn’t call it a crash if prices were rising at 2%, 3% or 4% each year because there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“It’s actually good for the end consumer, particularly for first-time buyers who want to get on the property ladder.”

“What is in favour of householders and people wanting prices to be maintained high is that the government has been for some time trying to target 300,000 new houses being built a year.”

“However, we’re still woefully short of that and I think it’s coming in around 200,000 houses year on year, so there is a supply issue which will continue to have a buffer for which the house prices naturally won’t fall below because of the supply issue.”

“While some kind of cooldown is not a bad thing, I don’t feel that there is a crash imminent,” Aldridge adds.