Local builders appear to be taking a bashing as a combination of householders with less money in their pockets and a freezing housing market takes its toll. Each quarter their trade body FMB conducts a state of trade survey where it measures (among other things) the balance between those seeing workload rise and those seeing it fall. The figure for the first quarter of this year came in at -8 compared with +6 at the end of last year. This…
Each week with each piece of data and each new forecast the balance of probability weighs increasingly heavily on the side of house prices falling rather than remaining flat this year. Today we see released the spring Item Club economic outlook for business and the latest Rightmove figures on asking prices for housing. Both are substantially less confident about house price than at the start of the year. Rightmove has eased on its confident postition of a flat market this…
The latest RICS survey on commercial property demand makes grim reading. Two figures are particularly worrying for the construction sector. Firstly: The balance of surveyors reporting demand down against those seeing demand rising was 30%, the worst figure for six years. Secondly: The balance between surveyors saying there was more available space against those reporting less was 27%, a rapid change from previous quarters when there was a fairly even balance.
There was little joy in today’s release of the Council of Mortgage Lenders March figures for lending, as they reinforced data pointing to a weakening housing market. Lending was up 5% on February, but the normal 20% March jump was absent with the figure 17% down on a year ago. Worse still is the likelihood that when the more detailed figures are released (splitting loans between house purchase, remortgage and other) they will show that lending for house purchases extremely…
At last some good statistical news for the Government – unemployment down – employment up – an increase in the number of vacancies. This boost will be particularly welcomed by both the Chancellor and Prime Minister, as the employment figures are so far proving to be their strongest card in their quest to convince the nation that the UK economy is on a firm footing.
If the RICS housing market survey has failed to provide enough gloom, here’s the story from across the Atlantic. Foreclosures (repossessions) in March up 57% on the same month a year ago, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties. RealtyTrac also suggests that things are so bad that more defaulting homeowners are simply walking away and leaving their properties to the bank. Memories, and bad ones, come to mind of the early 1990s in the UK.
The latest poll of estate agents by the surveyors body RICS produced the gloomiest set of figures on house price falls in the poll’s 30 year history. According to the latest monthly RICS housing market survey, the seasonally adjusted figure for the difference between the proportion of agents seeing house price rises and price falls was 78.5% in favour of those seeing a fall. That is much gloomier than February.
The Bank of England’s much expected decision to cut interest rates by 0.25% to 5% will provide a little short-term relief to worried managements within the construction and property sectors – although there will have been many crossed-fingered directors hoping for a 50 basis point cut. And certainly the contracting fraternity must be starting to sense a cold chill heading its way. The latest data has all been gloomy and the construction new orders figures for February suggest that the…
The latest construction research note from the surveyors’ trade body RICS takes an interesting look at the current state of the US and UK construction sectors. The underlying question RICS asks is whether the UK industry will follow the US into a recession. The headline grabbing data from the US are disturbing – housing starts down 54% from the 2005 average and a 34% drop in the value of private house building since February 2006. These are not figures that…
As I speculated late last month there was a potentially nasty blow in the pipeline for the sales teams of house builders and at estate agents when the Halifax house price index was published. Well the figures have been published and show a monthly fall of 2.5%, the fastest since September 1992. This was worse than expected and puts the March 2008 seasonally adjusted average house price at £191,556 against £194,094 last March. A fall of 1.3%.