London pre-open: Stocks seen up; Halifax house prices in focus

(Sharecast News) - London stocks looked set for a positive open on Monday after closing at another record high at the end of last week. The FTSE 100 was called to open around 50 points higher.

Investors will be mulling the latest data from Halifax, which showed that house prices jumped by nearly 2% over the last year, industry data, driven by demand for smaller homes.

Annual property price growth reached 1.9% in February, to £282,430, a notable recovery from October's low of -4.1%.

However, Halifax said that within that, price growth for different property types varied significantly.

Prices of flats and terraced houses jumped 2.7% and 2.6% respectively, but semi-detached properties increased by 1.7%.

Amanda Bryden, head of Halifax Mortgages, said: "It is important not to gloss over the challenges facing the UK housing market, given the impact of higher interest rates on mortgage affordability, coupled with a continued lack of supply of new homes.

"But scratch beneath the surface and there is a more nuanced story, one which shows that demand for different property types in different parts of the country can vary hugely.

"One way to compensate for higher borrowing costs is to target smaller properties. This is especially true among first-time buyers...who now account for the largest proportion of homes purchased with a mortgage in almost 30 years.

"We see this reflected in property prices for the first few months of this year, with the value of flats rising most sharply, closing the growth gap on bigger properties that's existed for most of the last four years."

In corporate news, music rights owner Hipgnosis said it agreed terms on a new $1.57bn takeover by private equity investor Blackstone in the latest tit-for-tat battle with rival Concord.

Blackstone on Monday upped its offer to $1.30 a share in cash, or 104 pence a share, beating Concord's latest offer of $1.24 a share.

Insurance group Beazley said that first-quarter results were in line with guidance with insurance written premiums (IWP) growing at high single digits. IWP were up 7% at $1.48bn, matching the full-year target growth rate.

Meanwhile, investments and cash jumped by 19% to $10.83bn, while the investment return held steady at 1.2%.

Chief executive Adrian Cox said the board was confident of delivering gross IWP growth guidance for the full year of high single digits.

"We remain optimistic about the outlook for our business in 2024 and beyond, focussing on continued, targeted growth and active capital management as the rate environment normalises," he said.