On the face of it the achievement of the Homes and Communities Agency looks impressive – 50,000 affordable homes delivered “despite” the downturn and targets ticked off as met with the exception of one. Now, I am an advocate for the establishment of the HCA, but I am also an advocate of transparency and a degree of humility. It was the use of the word “despite” in the announcement that got my goat. I was left wondering if that should…
The latest official figures produced by Communities and Local Government to gauge house prices suggest the decline in prices accelerated in February to an annual rate of -12.3%, which puts them 14.2% down from peak. No particular surprise there. But there is a scrap of hope in the figures for those looking for something to cheer them. The rate of decline in prices of homes in the first-time buyer market has declined for the first time since the annual rate…
More encouraging news for those involved in selling houses came from the surveyors’ body RICS today with the release of its latest housing market survey. The survey adds further weight to the argument that the catastrophic collapse in house prices has been arrested, with the balance between surveyors reporting falls in prices and those reporting rises becoming less negative.
Industry forecasters at Experian followed their rivals and cut expectations of construction activity over the coming three years. The predicted decline in output in 2009 is now put at 7.8% followed by a slight drop of 1.7% in 2010 and a bounce back up of 1.6% in 2011. This puts the peak-to-trough fall at around 10% compared with about 5% expected when Experian last forecast in the winter.
It has been a good spring so far for house builders in terms of sentiment if not in terms of actual sales. This is in sharp contrast to last year when market devastation created more ashen-faced residential developers than you could shake a stick at.
The spring round of forecasting has brought more gloom with the Construction Products Association taking an even dimmer view of industry prospects than in the winter. On the basis of the current data available the materials producers’ body predicts a drop of almost £15 billion in construction work at current prices this year. And it expects a further drop of almost £4 billion in annual output in 2010 before we see an upturn. If this forecast proves correct and my…
The first of the spring forecasts for construction has winged its way into my inbox. It is the Hewes & Associates’ forecast. Hewes expects on the basis of current data that levels of construction output will fall back to those last seen in 1996 before we see a recovery. This may seem a bit drastic, but I fully expect other forecasters to be plotting the future in a similar direction. Broadly the forecast is of the same shape as that…
The first of the spring forecasts for construction has winged its way into my inbox. It is the Hewes and Associates’ forecast. Hewes expects on the basis of current data that levels of construction output will fall back to those last seen in 1996 before we see a recovery. This may seem a bit drastic, but I fully expect other forecasters to be plotting the future in a similar direction. Broadly the forecast is of the same shape as that…
The Nationwide figures published yesterday provided some cheer for those selling homes with the announcement of a 0.9% rise in its house price index for March. That hope has been rather squashed with the Halifax today releasing figures suggesting the price of an average home fell in the month by 1.9%. What does it all mean?
I meant to get in an early night, but George Soros was billed to appear on Newsnight and while I know it’s shallow I am a sucker for celebrity. I legitimised my decision on the grounds that I wanted to see how broad the consensus was over the success of the G20 summit. I was worried I might be getting a bit over excited about it all, because frankly there’s been a lack of good signals out there in the…