(IELTS) Academic Task 1 - Housing cost in UK Note: what I found challenging about the topic was that: the discussion was about the rate of change, rather than the actual figures of house prices and renting cost. These two use completely different sets of vocabulary, and it's not easy to distinguish between the two especially when you have to work under the time limit. The chart shows how the rate of change in house prices and renting accommodation rose in the UK over a period of 3 years, from January 2013 to January 2016. According to these figures, we can see that while both increased over time, in overall the growth rate of house prices was higher than renting, even though it started out lower. The rate of change in renting cost remained fairly consistent throughout the period, began from approximately +3.8% in January 2013 and finished just over +4.5% by January 2016. During the period, there were only two slight dips in the first quarter of 2013 and the second half of 2014. The rise in the cost of buying a house fluctuated much significantly in comparison. Its growth accelerated swiftly during the first one and a half years, started out at +3% and achieved its peak of over +5% in the first half of 2014. What immediately followed after was a dramatic drop back to +3.7% in a mere time span of fewer than nine months. From the beginning of 2015, the rate of change in house prices regained its momentum and soared back with a growth rate of +4.5% in January 2016. It is also notable that in the last year of the surveyed period, the housing prices and renting expense shared a roughly similar pattern of change.