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.
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.
A shot in the arm, said the Home Builders Federation release sent out after Chancellor George Osborne sat down. And the Budget certainly lifted the already rising share prices of the quoted builders quite nicely. It must be said that comment came as no shock, as this was yet another ask or two or three by house builders that have been favourably answered by the incumbent Government. Putting in a presumption in favour of sustainable development in the planning law…
The first look at the inflation figures provide plenty of room to be very pessimistic if you owe lots of money and are on a tight budget. The jump in the CPI measure of inflation to 4.4% in February was more than many forecasters had expected. It will inevitably add to pressure on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to raise interest rates – if for no other reason than a perceived need to restore its dented confidence. For the…
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?
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…
Happy New Year and here is wishing fervently that it progresses far better than those reading the runes might suggest. For me the year has started encouragingly and for that I must congratulate Grant Shapps, our housing minister. In May when Shapps took the ministerial reins attached to the wild stallion that is housing I argued that the first big question he had to face down was whether he believes house prices at current levels are sustainable or not. In…