Browsed by
Tag: estate agents

What do we need more: people to build buildings or people to deal in them?

What do we need more: people to build buildings or people to deal in them?

Here’s a question posed by the labour market figures: Why since the recession hit do we have more dealers in buildings and fewer people building them? From the heady pre-recession days there seems to have been a 17% expansion in employment among dealers in buildings while employment among builders of buildings has shrunk 20%? That seems to be what the employment data tables in the ONS labour market data release tell us. Despite talk of a strong revival in construction,…

Read More Read More

If 2008 was bad for the housing market, 2009 looks much worse

If 2008 was bad for the housing market, 2009 looks much worse

There are plenty of scary figures in the latest forecast from the Council of Mortgage Lenders not least the expectation that half a million homeowners will fall into arrears. The expectation that 75,000 homes will be repossessed by mortgage lenders is pretty scary too, especially as this in practice would mean more repossessions than in previous peak of 1991 when all repossessions are totalled up. But for me the most disturbing prediction within the forecast is that residential property transaction…

Read More Read More

A bad time for house prices to go negative

A bad time for house prices to go negative

Nationwide released its latest house price figures today showing the a 1.1 per cent rise over the past 12 months. However, it also revised its forecast for 2008 down from no change to an overall fall. This will please neither estate agents nor house builders as they put Easter behind them and set themselves ready for the big seasonal sales push. But the blow to their sales teams may come next week with the release of the HBOS (Halifax) price…

Read More Read More