For those hypersensitive to twitches in the housing market the latest batch of data will not be comforting. Today we see the housing survey results for April from the surveyors’ body RICS, which its economists interpret as revealing a broad-based improvement, albeit within a market that remains fragile.
The latest figures from HM Revenue & Customs underline the fragility of the current housing market, showing continued falls in sales of homes. The data show the number of property transactions, seasonally adjusted, in the UK fell in the first three months of this year to a level last seen in July 2009.
House prices are showing signs of greater stability after the falls in the second half of last year. Today Hometrack released figures showing prices in March were just 0.1% down while Nationwide released a figure of plus 0.5%. But the big question on everyone’s mind is where to from here for the market as homebuyers and sellers adjust to the squeeze within the economy. And among construction folk what does this all mean for house building.
Research released this week by the think tank ippr painted a gloomy picture of house shortages in England growing disturbingly in the years to 2025, by which time it reckons we could have demand outstripping supply by 750,000 homes. It’s a stab at trying to predict what might happen and there will always be problems with research of this kind. It is, for instance, not inconceivable that if Britain’s economy becomes less attractive we may see a significant rise in…
The latest RICS housing market survey took on a decidedly three-speed look, very much in line with what one might expected would result from the current economic realignment being implemented by the Government. Broadly the picture it paints is one that shows prices up in London, down in most Southern regions and down a lot in the North. Naturally it is not that clear cut. Scotland continues to be in the less bad group and the North West seems to…
The latest chapter of the Social Trends analysis produced by the statistician’s at ONS covers housing. It pulls together familiar data and will tell the cognoscenti little or nothing they don’t already know. But interestingly you don’t have to pass the first graph before widely held assumptions are challenged. It is taken as fact by the overwhelming proportion of politicians and housing professionals that there is a housing shortage. Well here is Figure 1. Pull the numbers apart and we…
The latest survey by the surveyors’ body RICS appears to add as much uncertainty as it does clarity over which way and how fast the housing market is shifting. The headline figures suggest that house prices fell in January, but at a slower rate that in December. Is this good news or bad news?
If the City traders in residential derivatives have their fingers on the pulse of how house prices are likely to move then by 2016 the average home will be worth less than today. The index Future HPI, put together by Peter Sceats & Associates, provides an index of residential derivatives trades and it puts the average price of a house in December 2016 measured against the Halifax index at £159,076. That’s £2,394 less than the average non-seasonally adjusted house price…
There has been some rather unsettling data released over recent days for those who fear falling house prices. The latest Bank of England data showed seasonally adjusted mortgage lending falling by 10% in December to a level not seen since May 2009 when the housing market slumped. Nationwide’s house price index showed a further slight fall of 0.1% in January, which when other indicies are considered suggest prices are on a downward path. Meanwhile there are worrying signs of falling…
Both buyers and sellers appeared to be fleeing the housing market in December, according to the latest housing market survey from the surveyors’ body RICS. The intriguing question is whether this was a freak result cause by heavy falls of snow or are we seeing a climate change in the housing market. Certainly the RICS points understandably to the bad weather as a factor in the results. But we will have to wait for later results to provide a firmer…