New data from Nationwide reveal that UK house prices increased by nearly 5% in 2024 but remain below their 2022 peak. Relative to income, prices are still nearly 9% lower now than they were then, as the chart below shows. The central scenario in Fathom’s Global Outlook, Winter 2024 sees the path for UK interest rates remaining ‘Higher for longer’; and accordingly we expect the house-price-to-income ratio to continue drifting lower, restraining high levels of house-price inflation. We also estimate that if Labour were to succeed in its ambitious plan to build 1.5 million new houses by 2029, around 5%