Brickonomics

So the construction output figures post a fall of 0.5% in the second quarter and recession in construction now looks more of a forgone conclusion than a fear. The first point to note is that was not just the private housing sector that pulled the figures down. But more worrying to me is that I am not convinced by the figures. I feel sure there will be plenty of industry experts left scratching their heads after reading the release. I…

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Investors in housing futures are still putting their money on a peak to trough fall in house prices of more than 30%, despite the Government’s attempts to buoy the market. The Tradition “Futures HPI”, which takes it figures from the prevailing prices in the residential property derivatives market and pegs itself against the Halifax non-seasonally adjusted house price, puts the price of an average house in three years time at £137,695. That is a further drop of 21.5% drop in…

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More gloom (or joy if you are a potential buyer) from the statisticians at HBOS as the Halifax house price index (not seasonally adjusted) shows a 12.7% annual fall from last August to now. That is getting pretty close to the full 14.7% peak to trough fall measured by Halifax in the 43 months from July 1989 to February 1993. After that prices remained more or less flat for a further three years. Roughly speaking house prices on the Halifax…

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I freely admit this is an indulgent blog and rather outside what I see as my scope, but I felt an obligation to make some points on the subject of the attacks on Alistair Darling and to record a thank you to Evan Davis of the BBC for saving me time in expressing many of my concerns (not that he was or probably is aware of my concerns). I had been fearing that I was alone – and perhaps misguided…

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I am currently imagining the collective groans from those in the housing and house building industry as the details of the latest high publicity housing rescue plan were revealed today. Housing rescue plan III was much more widely trumpeted than the first two (see comments on Part I, Part II). This probably is because the collapse of the housing market and house building industry is much more widely appreciated. Leaving aside the many issues I have with the policy mix,…

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In the face of growing concern and gloom surrounding the construction industry, in particular the house building bit, construction folk in general seem to be keeping their spirits and appear on balance to be optimistic about future prospects. That, as I read it, is the key message from the latest survey for August of construction activity and prospects by the buyers body CIPS.

For me tracking the Government’s handling of the economic crisis over the past few months has been a bit like watching a sick gag in a sketch show where a child hops into the kitchen with one bloodied leg severed off to be told by his mother: “It’ll be alright dear, now run along.” The message Government ministers have pumped out has been that the fundamentals of the British economy are strong and we will be sheltered from the storm,…

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If you take the figures at face value, things have just gotten a lot worse for construction and a recession now seems inevitable and potentially deeper than first thought. According to the newly revised GDP figures for the second quarter of this year UK economic growth has come to a grinding halt, with falls in construction playing a greater role in the slowdown than estimated last month.

I received an email late last night suggesting that I might like to blog on the sudden pulling of the property transaction figures – that is the recently introduced dataset that measures residential sales over £40,000. I lead a thrill filled life… Anyway the figures have plunged of late and the statisticians are a bit worried about accuracy of the data. They are rather in the limelight at the moment. I replied to say I was considering making a comment…

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