If you plan to buy or sell your home, keep calm. It has happened before, and it will happen again. Whenever the UK government intervenes in the property market, people get thrown into disarray or think they can short-circuit the market - but in my experience, they usually end up regretting it.

The last time this happened was just over two years ago when the stamp duty saving was on the cards.

It turbo-charged buyers, created panic and artificially inflated prices, with the banks getting unnerved by it all.

Sound familiar?

Alex Goldstein has his say on the state of the property market.

To be clear, no one I am speaking currently with is using the phrase ‘property crash’.

What has happened is that the Government and Bank of England have lulled people into a false sense of security since the financial crash of 2008/9.

Since then, interest rates have continued to remain at an all-time low.

Money has been cheap to borrow and as a result the property market in this country has been roaring away.

Rather than gently increasing the base rate every so often over a period of years, we are now in a situation where we’ve been caught out.

All the economic factors that we know have come to a head and the only option left is to regularly increase interest rates, which has created surprise for people and fuelled media hysteria.

But will this materially affect Yorkshire property prices?

Whilst I feel we will see prices soften, it is not going to be the drama that the wider media are eluding to.

If we look historically, Yorkshire has always held its own in times of change and uncertainty.

Post-financial crash, post-Covid, we have always held firm.

In addition, we continue to attract buyers from London and the Home Counties, plus internationally as well.

Overlay this with a robust local market and a thriving off-market sector and Yorkshire will again hold its own.

Buyers need to see houses as a medium to long-term investment and not to micro-analyse the day-to-day fluctuations.

What happens on a daily or monthly basis has little impact when you consider many homeowners now wish to stay put for 15 to 20 years.

Your ownership over that timeframe will insulate you from most fluctuations.

To de-risk yourself further, always try to add value to your property by extending or updating it cosmetically.

This is one of the reasons I’m vehemently against mass volume new-build properties is because PLCs have already covered all the possible angles for improvement.

It means that as an owner, you can’t add value to your home and solely rely on the market to appreciate it in value, which is a risky move.

We are currently in the eye of the storm and whilst many lenders have withdrawn or changed their terms, at the end of the day, they will come back to the table as they need the business.

The current hiatus isn’t sustainable, so stability will resume.

My advice is if you want reliable, dependable markets, which will still be here in several years – don’t rely on the government, rely on Yorkshire to see you right!

Alex Goldstein is an independent property consultant

Why Yorkshire property market will hold firm despite interest rate worries - Alex Goldstein