house prices
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Housing Market
Post Brexit vote market is still buoyant…but only just
The number of properties on the market has increased by 1% since the Brexit vote but the number under offer has dropped by 2.5% and national asking prices are down by 2% reports Jackson-Stops & Staff. The agent has given its verdict on the post-Brexit vote market after looking at 500,000 properties for sale across the UK. “Three months after the UK’s historic vote to leave the EU, the property market remains alive and active [and] there are more properties on the market today than on the day of the Brexit vote,” says chairman Nick Leeming. Predictions during the EU referendum of a bloodbath in London after the Brexit vote have proved to be inaccurate, the JSS research suggests, as it reveals that asking prices in the capital are down by only 3% since mid-June and that “properties priced below £1m are still seeing high levels of interest”. London’s £2m+ prime market is in less good shape. Only 7% of properties in this price bracket are under agreed offer compared to 36.1% nationally, the JSS research reveals. Leeming says this is down to a range of factors including reduced confidence in the prime property following Brexit and the increased Stamp…
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Latest property news
Summer in the cities
The Hometrack UK Cities House Price Index has found that annual house price inflation plateaued at 10.2 per cent in June, the same level as May 2016, but still ahead of 6.9 per cent growth seen in June 2015. Bristol remains the fastest growing city in the UK with a year on year growth rate of 14.7 per cent, but year-on-year house price inflation in London and in other cities in the south of England, such as Cambridge and Southampton started to slow between May and June 2016. Conversely, large cities in northern parts of the UK such as Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds have registered strong growth in the last quarter on the back of more affordable prices, lower interest rates, improving local economies and higher yields making purchases attractive to investors. For all cities in England and Wales, excluding London, new listings have grown 10 per cent faster than the 12 month average, this rises to over 15 per cent in London. In contrast is an 8 per cent relative fall in sales in London i.e. 8 per cent fewer homes sold per month in the last 3 months compared to the 12 month average. Richard Donnell, Insight…
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Latest property news
Chill wind across the property market
Countrywide, Zoopla, Crest Nicholson, Persimmon and Berkeley all hit by falling share prices.
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Regulation & Law
Introduce CGT on homes, says thinktank
The Government is being urged to consider introducing capital gains tax (CGT) to help prevent house prices from spiralling out of control. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) believes that the levy would help deter people from investing in property, helping to restrict overall demand from buyers and keep property prices at bay. Angus Armstrong, a Senior Economist at Niesr, told the press, “A first priority must be to improve the taxation of housing. An efficient tax system would be consistent across assets and leave the decision about how much to consume today versus save and consume tomorrow unaffected. “If a capital gains tax were introduced, this would reduce the gains in an upturn and losses in a downturn, so dampening house price cycles. These ideas are unfortunately in the opposite direction to recent policies.” The thinktank also urged the Government to stop relying so heavily on the private housebuilding sector to help solve the widening supply-demand imbalance in the market, as it could never meet the demands for housing.” The latest figures show that the number of new homes registered across the UK hit an eight year high of 156,140 in 2015, up 7 per cent…
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Housing Market
House prices set to soar
Residential property prices and rents look set to rise sharply over the next decade, according to a new report. The ARLA and NAEA Housing 2025 report forecasts that the average UK home price, currently stood at around £280,000, will appreciate by half their existing value by 2025 – reaching an average price of £419,000. House price growth is expected to be led by London, where it is estimated property prices will almost double in the 10 years, increasing from £515,000 to £931,000, fuelled primarily by a widening supply-demand imbalance in the market. The ARLA and NAEA Housing 2025 report also projects that there will be a drop in the proportion of UK households that own their own property over the next decade, down from its existing rate of 62 per cent to 55 per cent, owed mainly to high home prices and the ageing of the baby-boom generation. “House prices are only going to go one way, and unfortunately that is up. For so many already priced out of the market, this is news aspiring house buyers will not want to hear,” said Mark Hayward, Managing Director, NAEA. He added, “Ongoing house price inflation, combined with low wage inflation, tighter…
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Uncategorised
Patchy forecast for sales
Report Headlines Rightmove: “Biggest September rise for 13 years to new record high benefits the property-rich.” Home.co.uk: “Average London house price up £60,000.” NAEA: “Supply of available housing dwindles to eleven year low.” RICS: “Sales growth picks up speed as solid demand begins to filter through.” Nationwide: “Annual house price growth picks up to 3.8 per cent whilst regional divergence grows.” Halifax: “Annual house price growth eases to 8.6 per cent.” Agency Express: “UK property market gains momentum in September.” LSL: “The most frequently paid property price across England and Wales is just £125,000. Hometrack: “City level house price inflation is running at 8.3 per cent per annum, up from 6.6 per cent in May.” Land Registry: “August data shows a monthly price increase of 0.5 per cent and the annual price change is now 4.2 per cent.” KATE SAYS: “Property price inflation is reported to be between +3 per cent through to just under 9 per cent year on year depending on which index you look at. The higher rates are being applied to mortgage lending via Halifax and Hometrack’s City Index. But despite talks of affordability issues, LSL’s data shows that more houses are sold at £125,000 than…
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Housing Market
Static lending rates may fuel house prices
Residential property prices in the UK will almost certainly continue to rise next year after the Bank of England implied the first interest rate rise may not happen before 2017, according to Savills. With borrowing costs set to remain low, the company forecasts that UK home prices will rise by an average of 17 per cent over the next five years, led by gains in the South East of the country, with an increase of 21.6 per cent, while properties in the North East will appreciate by only 12 per cent over the period, Savills said. The forecasts are based on interest rates staying below 4.5 per cent, but it is now expected that the base rate may only increase to 0.75 per cent in around 2017. “If interest rates rise too quickly, mainstream house price growth will be quickly be curtailed,” said Lucian Cook (left), Head of UK Residential Research for Savills. “On the flip side, if rates remain low for too long, there is a risk that prices will rise too far, creating affordability issues further down the line.” Property prices in London, which have increased more than other parts of the UK in recent years, are expected…
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Housing Market
House prices set to rise
Residential property prices look set to increase by an average of £60,000 over the next five years, hitting more than £320,000 in 2020, according to Cebr, the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The economic forecaster expects the average price of a home in the UK to reach £263,000 this year, up 5.6 per cent on last year, but believes that the market offers further room for growth of 3.5 per cent in 2016, with further annual price rises of in the region of 4 per cent in the four years that follow. If accurate, these price hikes will take the average price of a UK home to £321,600 during 2020 – £58,600 more than the average residential property price in 2015, according to Cebr. Nina Skero, CebrEconomist and main author of the report, believes that capital growth will be primarily fuelled by a growing “reduction in the number of properties being put on the market” as a result of low levels of housebuilding, as well as other factors such as an ageing population and the rising cost of moving up the property ladder. He commented, “The price gap between a first-time home and a larger family home has skyrocketed…
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Housing Market
The growing supply-demand imbalance is pushing up residential property prices
Residential property prices look set to increase further this year, as demand from buyers continues to heavily outstrip the supply of homes coming on to the market, the latest residential market survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has revealed. The report shows that while 44 per cent more chartered surveyors saw prices rise in July, the supply of homes coming onto the market continued the drop with 22 per cent more surveyors reporting a decline in fresh instructions. Furthermore, the shortage of housing inventory worsened further during July, with the average volume of homes for sale per surveyor falling to an all-time low. As a result, all areas of the UK are now expected to witness property price growth over the next 12 months, with the greatest level of confidence currently being seen in East Anglia and Northern Ireland. RICS expect home prices to be pushed higher on the back of the growing supply-demand imbalance, with 41 per cent of members expecting prices to continue to appreciate over the next three months. Increasing prices does not appear to have deterred buyer interest, with new purchaser enquiries growing for the fourth consecutive month, with 25 per cent of…
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Housing Market
House prices stable as transactions dip
The latest house price data from the Land Registry shows that house prices in England and Wales remained stable on a monthly basis, despite figures from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) revealing that there was a drop in transactions. Although prices remained flat overall on a monthly basis, there were parts of England and Wales that saw rises, led by London where the average price of a home appreciated by 0.7 per cent month-on-month. On an annual basis, the Land Registry data revealed that prices rose by an average of 4.6 per cent in the year to May 2015 to £179,696. Again, London led the surge, with prices in the capital increasing by 9.1 per cent year-on-year. “Land Registry data shows that house prices are continuing to march upwards with London and the South East seeing the greatest annual growth,” said Brian Murphy (left), Head of Lending at Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB). “The trend is not deterring homebuyers, as mortgage approvals are also at their highest since the Mortgage Market Review (MMR) was implemented according to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA). But it does mean that the average borrower is taking out a bigger loan than at any point since…
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