Chinese New Year 2021 - why Year of the Ox could be bad news for property market

While thousands around the world prepare to celebrate Chinese New Year this Friday, welcoming in the Year of the Ox as they do, property market analysis by GetAgent.co.uk, has found that it could bring bad news for UK homeowners.

GetAgent.co.uk analysed house prices over the last four Chinese zodiac cycles going back as far as 1973, to see historically which year in the Chinese zodiac brought the most fortune for UK homeowners. Get Agent also looked at transaction levels to see which year bought the most buoyant level of market activity with it.

The current Year of the Rat has seen UK house prices soar to new heights, helped along by the soon to expire stamp duty holiday. Coincidence then, that when analysing the average sold price across the last four cycles in the Chinese zodiac, GetAgent found that the Year of the Rat was home to the highest average house price of £124,733.

However, this positive market movement could be about to end. The research also shows that over the last four zodiac cycles, the Year of the Ox has seen house prices average just £65,431. By far the lowest of all years in the Chinese calendar.

There’s more bad news for the property market. The last time the Year of the Ox was rung in was 2009, a year that saw just 847,540 transactions take place in the residential market.

This is the lowest total of transactions seen across the most recent Chinese zodiac, could a repeat of history be on the cards in 2021?

Founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, commented:

 “Any search for ancient artefacts linking the Chinese zodiac and the UK property market is likely to be a fruitless one. However, it is interesting to see that the impending Year of the Ox has seen the lowest average house prices over the last four cycles, just as many start to prophesise the demise of the market ahead of the stamp duty holiday deadline.

That said, we’ve seen these claims of a market crash materialise at numerous points in recent years, but so far, the market has shrugged off all that has been thrown at it to reach record property price highs.

The UK property market, much like the Chinese zodiac, is cyclical in nature. So if the worst were to happen this year and house prices do fall, you can literally bet your house on the market rebounding at a fairly swift rate.”

*A historical market look was used in order to give a more balanced mix of sold prices and transactions for each Chinese year, rather than looking at the last 12 years alone due to the sharp increase of house prices in recent times.