This morning Statistics Jersey released its report on the House Price Index (HPI) for the first quarter of 2026, which provides us with a superb overview as to how the year has commenced.
Property prices
Average property values continue to decrease, the last quarter by an average rate of 5% compared to the corresponding first quarter of 2025, but only by 1% compared to that of the last quarter of 2025.
Average property prices for quarter one of 2026
Average property prices for quarter one of 2026, compared with quarter four of 2025 are as follows:
- One-bedroom apartments increased by £11,000 to £310,000
- Two-bedroom apartments increased by £10,000 to £506,000
Two-bedroom houses decreased by £81,000 to £471,000 (it should be noted this bracket is sensitive to values due to low turnover) - Three-bedroom houses increased by £4,000 to £736,000
- Four-bedroom houses decreased by £176,000 to £1,010,000 (it should be noted that these figures appear to be affected by a high proportion of sales in this bracket below £750,000)
Turnover
Action within the market was 1% lower that the first quarter of 2025, and 10% lower than the previous and last quarter of 2025. This possibly reflects a pause in transactions due to outside world events impacting cost of living locally.
First time buyers
This area of the market showed an increase of 1% compared with the previous quarter and accounted for 25% of property purchases.
Rental market
Rental prices, whilst having been subject to decline over the past year or so, now show an increase of 1% compared to that of the previous quarter.
Unfortunately, however, we are seeing a decrease in private rental stock and this has resulted in the loss of 77 private rental units over the course of the past year. That said, 30 properties were purchased in the last quarter were not intended for use as the main residence of the buyers, but this does not mean that these properties have entered the private rental sector.
Financing
With the Bank of England Base Rate remaining static, locally the mortgage rates shows little movement and it is forecast that our local rates will continue as such whilst the unrest with current world events continues.
Looking ahead
The local market is busy! We expect to see further action as vendors accept that sales will not take place without reductions in asking prices and it is expected that the current quarters figures will reflect this forecast when released – watch this space!
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