Here’s a question that goes right to the heart of current housing policy: Should we be using incentives as readily as we are to encourage first-time buyers onto the property ladder? However iconoclastic or contrary this question may seem, it needs to be asked. There is so much at stake.
All the gauges appear to be reading “set fair” in the housing market, so why the long faces among those in the know? The latest RICS housing market survey on the face of it provides every reason to suspect that better times lie ahead. This follows a raft of housing indexes showing house prices rising steadily for several months. The RICS survey has for three months now seen more surveyors reporting rising prices than reporting prices falling and the majority…
The futures market is now pricing in strong growth in the housing market, with the Halifax index priced to rise by 6% over the coming 12 months and by 12% over 5 years. This is a marked rise in the prices from just a month ago and reflects the uplift in the Halifax index against which the futures prices are measured and the overall rise in other house price measures. The Tradition Future HPI – a derivatives-based measure of future…
The latest new orders figures provide a sobering injection of reality after the barrage of “it’s okay the recession is over” talk that seems rife. Yes the rate of collapse has slowed. But it’s the level that really matters at the moment. Forgetting seasonal adjusted constant price measures, if we compare the amount of work contractors have bagged over the preceding 12 months in cash terms we see the amount still dwindling.
The big news is that for the first time in two years more surveyors in Britain said prices rose than said they fell, according to the latest RICS housing market survey. The big question is whether this is the start of a continuous and sustained recovery in the housing market or just, as the ITEM Club suggested yesterday, a false dawn. The big problem is that while the survey points to a general rise in prices, it also highlights that…
The Council of Mortgage Lenders today adds yet more weight to the view that the housing market is in a period of stability if not growth. Its June figures show a 23% increase in the number of home loans over the past month taking the total to a level not seen for about a year. The bounce back in loans to first time buyers will come as a welcome relief to house builders in particular. While numbers are still low…
The official figures for property transactions will make comforting reading in April for those selling homes. They seem consistent with the prevailing view that the housing market, in terms of sales and not prices, is showing some signs of bouncing back up from the floor reached at the turn of the year. The latest stats show that in both March and April there were 58,000 deals. This compares with 41,000 in January and 43,000 in February.
Caroline Flint has just announced the much talked of rescue plan for the housing market – couched in terms of affordable housing, but in essence an attempt to bolster the crumbling house building sector. It has been welcomed by the National Housing Federation, so it must be good. And I am sure the Home Builders Federation will, through gritted teeth, also welcome the move. See what you think, but to my eyes it appears to be the equivalent of throwing…