Advertisement
Politics

House prices will fall by 9% by 2024, OBR predicts

Reacting to Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement, the OBR also said living standards will face the biggest drop since records began

House prices will fall by 9 per cent by 2024 thanks to high interest rates and the economic downturn, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has predicted.

It marks a reversal in a trend which saw house prices rise by 15.5 per cent in the year to July, with an increase now not forecast to happen until 2025.

Living standards will also fall by the greatest amount since records began, the OBR has predicted.

In forecasts produced alongside Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement, the OBR said living standards will fall by 4.3 per cent in 2022/23. However, it has said this fall would have been far greater without the financial support announced by the government.

The fall in living standards over the next two years will mean the progress of the last eight years will be wiped out, the OBR said.

Your support changes lives. Find out how you can help us help more people by signing up for a subscription

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertisement

The chancellor also announced the energy price cap will increase from £2,500 to £3,000 a year for a typical household, a move the OBR said would add 1 per cent to inflation.

Filled with spending cuts and tax rises, Hunt’s statement also included an increase to benefits in line with inflation and a maximum increase of 7 per cent in social housing rents.

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

A greater share of household income will also be spent on essentials such as energy and food “as their prices have risen quickly and there is limited scope to substitute away from them,” the OBR’s report said.

Campaigners have warned the social housing rent increase will “inflict hardship on those with the least political influence and lobbying power”, while Big Issue founder Lord John Bird said “the policies announced will only serve to push even more people into poverty and worse, onto the streets.”

Read more of the Big Issue’s coverage of the Autumn Statement:

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

SIGN THE PETITION

Will you sign Big Issue's petition to ask Keir Starmer to pass a Poverty Zero law? It's time to hold government to account on poverty once and for all.

Recommended for you

Read All
Will Reform's Britannia Card really help low-income households – or is it a 'giveaway to the rich'?
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage
Reform UK

Will Reform's Britannia Card really help low-income households – or is it a 'giveaway to the rich'?

England and Wales must follow Scotland's lead and set legal targets to end child poverty
Big Issue vendors back the Poverty Zero campaign.
Poverty

England and Wales must follow Scotland's lead and set legal targets to end child poverty

From the NHS to the DWP: UK's new data law will make your life 'radically different', minister says
Data

From the NHS to the DWP: UK's new data law will make your life 'radically different', minister says

Labour rejects Big Issue founder's bid to set legally binding child poverty reduction targets
Crossbench peer and Big Issue founder Lord John Bird
Child poverty

Labour rejects Big Issue founder's bid to set legally binding child poverty reduction targets

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue