Although there was a little increase in British home prices in June compared to May, mortgage company Nationwide stated that the housing market is still being negatively impacted by rising borrowing rates. It reported that prices increased by 0.2% on a monthly basis and were 1.5% higher than in June of the previous year. The coronavirus outbreak caused a boom in the British property market, but after the Bank of England raised interest rates to their highest point since 2008 last year, the market has slowed. Nationwide's price index shows that prices have dropped by around 3% from their peak, which was reached two years ago. Robert Gardner, chief economist at Nationwide, stated that earnings growth had been much stronger than house price growth in recent years, but he noted that this had not been sufficient to counterbalance the impact of higher mortgage rates. Britain's opposition Labour Party, which was far ahead in opinion polls in the run-up to Thursday's election, had promised to relax planning rules in the hope of spurring construction, which could potentially make housing more affordable. According to Nationwide, prices in London had risen by 1.6% in the April-to-June period compared with the second quarter of 2023. A Reuters poll of housing market analysts published on May 29 indicated that property prices in Britain were expected to rise by 1.8% in 2024 as higher wages were expected to make homes more affordable.