The UK will avoid a severe recession and a house price crash
following the Brexit vote, PricewaterhouseCoopers has said.
It believes that there will be a marked slowdown in house price
growth, but no major crash.
It believes that house prices will grow 3% this year and 1% next,
before house price growth picks up again in 2018 to around 4%.
In the longer term, it thinks house price growth will average 5% to
6%, with persistent supply shortages keeping house prices rising
faster than earnings.
PWC also forecasts that GDP growth could fall to 0% by the end of
this year and could be somewhere between 1.5% growth next year or a
1% decrease.
Even if the latter happened, there would not be a severe
recession.
Separately, the French bank Societie Generale has warned that
Brexit could cut London house prices by 30% – or even by up to
half.
It says that in the wake of the Leave vote, companies will move
employees, including highly paid investment bankers and hedge fund
managers, out of the UK.
It believes that some 3,000 senior staff living in expensive
boroughs could be moved out of Britain, and would put their homes
on the market.
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