Nicola Spencer, Spencers estate agents, Sheffield

2023 was a rollercoaster year, starting with a bewilderment hangover from the end of 2022 and Liz Truss’s atomic bomb mini budget. The year in our region seemed unaffected until we got to the summertime, when we really started to see a decline in interest and where people seemed to be hanging on for the perceived “bottom” of the market.

Through Q4, the market was stronger, more stable, people seemed more resilient to the idea of the interest rates remaining as they are, the utility prices coming down helped ease some cost and expenditure worries, and into 2024 we feel this steady confidence will remain. The ambitiousness of fast climbing in the housing market has tamed, which is no bad thing, and people are wholly more sensible with their outlooks of the cost of living remaining high and therefore affordability remaining tight.

2024 looks likely to start slowly but to pick up somewhat into spring summer as the days get longer and hope returns with gusto – we are anticipating a steady year ahead, hopefully with fewer surprises than the last four years of worldwide unavoidable turbulence.

average compared to the beginning of 2020 before the pandemic.

Looking ahead, the county’s value gap and excellent connectivity to the hubs of York, Leeds, Manchester and London, ease of access to the A1, excellent schooling and quality of life on offer means that there is more capacity for growth. Consequently, we expect Yorkshire to outperform the rest of the UK over the next five years, led by the equity driven prime market.

Savills researchers forecasting prices in Yorkshire will grow by an average of 20.2 per cent over the next five years.

While the housing market appears to be past ‘peak pain’, putting your property on the market at the right price is paramount to a successful sale. Demand remains good for high quality property, especially from the downsizer market