UK House Prices – Real and Nominal

This graph shows the changes in nominal and real house prices in the past two decades.

Real house prices means adjusted for inflation.

In the last housing crash from 1989-1993, inflation was significantly higher than the present period. Therefore, the fall in real house prices was quite dramatic. e.g if House prices fall 15% in a year but inflation is 10%. It represents a 25% fall.

Currently inflation is very low. So real house price falls are similar to nominal house price falls. But, the very low inflation means people’s mortgage payments are not decreasing in real terms like many may have expected