House Price Market Update for July 2010
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Following June's data, the housing market definitely 'appears' to be slowing. However it is important to remember that much of this is due to a comparison of data this year versus last year, when the market starting showing signs of recovery rather than seeing a 'true' slowdown of the market.
"Overall", says Kate Faulkner, one of the UK's top property market commentators "We've still some way to go before we recover to the dizzy heights of 2007 prices and sales volumes are still way down from their peak. July's property figures just confirm what we've been saying for a while now, in that the market had a 'little spurt' in the last 12 months, mostly thanks to cautious sellers not wanting or daring to move, so sale stock remained as low as demand".
Sales volumes are up by just under 40% versus last year, but this is still half what we have sold in the past. Asking prices have pretty much stopped rising and according to Zoopla "almost one-third (32%) of property for sale in Britain today, has had their asking price reduced at least once since they were first listed on the market". Most of these price reductions have hit areas "up north" such as Barnsley, Rotherham and Manchester where properties for sale do seem to be outstripping demand.
Prices are still showing positive growth versus 2009, but that's against a poor performing year. Overall prices are still down on average by 10% from pre credit crunch levels. Meanwhile Hometrack data is reporting less buyers coming into the market, that it is taking slightly longer to sell a home and canny buyers are offering less for property against asking prices.
Potentially this means prices are stalling even BEFORE the government cutbacks, what next then, will they go into free fall when the cuts kick in? Kate says it's time for calm. "The problem is if you've been monitoring property markets across the UK for the past 10 years the market cooling isn't a surprise, with or without cutbacks. It's just that confidence has been boosted with good news stories in the last 12 months and the media have only really talked the figures up (note the media, NOT the property industry!) and properties for sale have remained as low as demand, so the market artificially stabilised."
What will happen next in the property market?
Kate believes the market will just bump along the bottom for at least the next six months. As usual, some properties and areas will go up, some go down, some stay the same, but overall it'll be pretty much the same.
Kate concludes "There is no point making any other prediction about 2011 until we see what the goverment do at the next budget and the extent of job losses and impact on the private sector of cutting public expenditure. We can work out what happens in five or more years time, but without further information from the budget it's foolish to predict what will happen next year. We have a very fragile property market, which is part of an equally fragile economy, so there's not much point making fragile predictions until we understand how much money and how many jobs are going to disappear".
For a more indepth analysis of what's happening to property prices in YOUR local area? READ MORE
The outlook for 2010 will depend on whether buyers have run out of cash and interest rates go up forcing repossession. READ MORE for a summary of Kate's price predictions for the rest of 2010.
Performance and commentary since January 2009:-
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Headline Statistics for July 2010
Headline Statistics | Statistics | +/- | Source | Month |
Average Prices | £166,072 to £236,332 | +8.4% to +3.7% YoY | Land Registry Lowest
Rightmove Highest | June/July data |
Transactions* | 44,114* | +37.68% YoY | Land Registry | Jan to Apr 10 |
Time to Sell | 8.7 Weeks | Up on last month | Hometrack | July |
Number of viewings to sale | 11 | No change from last four months | Hometrack | July |
Offer to Market Price | 94% | A decrease on last month | Hometrack | July |
% change in new buyers registering with agents | -1.3% | A fall on previous two months | Hometrack | July |
No of houses sold by agents | 6 | A fall on last month | NAEA | June |
% sold to for sale boards | 26% | A slight increase on last month | For Sale Sign Anaylsis | July |
Number of new mortgages | 47,643 | Down on last month | Bank of England | June |
* Per month
Sold versus For Sale Sign Boards data*
Month 2010 | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul |
Percentage
Sold | 26% | 26.4% | 25.4% | 26.5% | 30.9% | 25.5% | 26% |
Month 2009 | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
Percentage
Sold | 16% | 12% | 17% | 19.5% | 21.1% | 28.3% | 29.5% | 30.2% | 36.3% | 27.3% | 31% | 34% | 26.7% |
*Data provided by FSSA, for more information on this data,
Contact usLinks to useful Buying and Selling Reports
Price Indices
There are at least seven property indices and other companies that comment on the property market, please checkout the links below:-
Rightmove Halifax Nationwide RICS
Communities Financial Times Land Registry Other Useful Resources
Hometrack NAEA RICS Savills Knight FrankDownload Savills Residential Property Focus
For more market commentary on a national or local level:-
Contact Kate Faulkner on 07974 750562 or 0845 838 1763. To read more about Kate, please visit
ABOUT US, see
Kate on video and for media appearances, contact:
Sylvia Tidy-Harris
STH Management Tel +44 (0) 1530 263221
Mob +44 (0) 7970 646872
Fax: +44 (0) 1530 264018
