17 August 2023
The house price report for the second quarter 2023 has been published today by Statistics Jersey.
The Jersey House Price Index measures the combined average price of 1- and 2-bedroom flats together with 2-, 3- and 4-bedroom houses. The index includes properties transacted through the Royal Court as well as share transfer properties.
Summary
It is important to note that this quarter has seen a significant proportion of transactions (45%) take place as the result of completions occurring in new developments. These sales have increased average prices for flats and inflated the level of turnover in this quarter. The level of turnover would be 62% lower when compared to Q2 2022 (rather than 42% lower), when excluding new builds in both quarters.
Average prices for most property types are largely unaffected by these new developments. However, the mean price for 2-bedroom flats would have been considerably lower. This is because the new developments were largely sold off plan before increases in the Bank of England base rate had impacted the market. Without the transactions within these new developments the overall House Price Index would have decreased by 4% compared with Q2 2022, rather than the decrease of 1% recorded.
These sales from new developments make up a significant proportion of turnover, which means that they have a large impact on the composition of market sales statistics, particularly for flats.
In the second quarter of 2023:
- on a quarterly basis:
- the seasonally adjusted mix-adjusted average price was essentially unchanged compared with the previous quarter
- there was a 1% annual decrease in the House Price Index, the first decrease seen since Q3 2016
- the seasonally adjusted mix-adjusted average price was 4% lower than the previous high point seen in Q3 2022
- all types of house saw their mean price decrease compared with Q2 2022, while other property types saw an increase in their mean price compared with Q2 2022
- the turnover of properties was 42% lower than in Q2 2022, and we observed in this quarter:
- 28% of properties transacted were not purchased to be the main residence of the purchaser(s), an 8 percentage point decrease from the previous quarter
- overall housing market activity, on a rolling four-quarter basis, was 13% lower compared with the previous quarter (Q1 2023) and 23% lower than in the corresponding quarter of 2022 (Q2 2022)
- on a rolling four-quarter basis, advertised private sector rental prices were 7% higher during the year ending Q2 2023 compared with the year ending Q2 2022
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