Kate Faulkner's price summary tracks key reports on property prices produced on a monthly basis, and summarises crucial numbers and what experts are saying about the market and includes Kate’s comments on what this means, primarily for the general public, but also for the industry, market and economy. This summary report includes data from the NAEA, Nationwide, Rightmove and the Land Registry.
Download the full report for November 2015
Kate Faulkner comments on Report Headlines:
“The market clearly had a bit of an unexpected ‘uptick’ this month as until now, price growth seemed to have been slowing ‘on average’ each month. An odd statement though from Rightmove suggests that buy to let investors are “competing” with first time buyers. This shouldn’t really be happening as smart investors should secure a property at a discount, with cash for example, and find a way to add value. First time buyers on the other hand have the advantage over investors of needing a much lower deposit, essentially ‘gearing’ their purchase with a 5% deposit or accessing schemes such as new build Help to Buy. If investors are competing prices upwards, there is a danger they are likely to overpay and struggle to finance the property in the future. Hometrack’s city index shows that although prices are up on average in the UK by 6.6% (8.4% in cities), there are still 9/20 cities with prices lower than their peak in 2007.”
Actual Report Headlines
Download the full report for November 2015
Kate Faulkner comments on Regional Price Differences:
“The two useful reports from the indices this month are from LSL which shows that although prices are up and October saw good sales growth, volumes in Q3 15 vs Q3 14 were lower and in my view it’s unlikely they will pick up towards the end of the year. Hometrack also shows that the diversity in price changes by city remains enormous, with London prices (on average) being up by 43%, while Belfast prices are still half the levels they were, rightly concluding “there is no such thing as a single UK housing market”.
What are the indices saying?
Home.co.uk “The uplift in prices from East of England and the South East regions continues to drive the national average higher, thereby obscuring the poorer performance of several northern regions. Annualised price changes for the North East, North West and Yorkshire of just 0.0%, 0.8% and 1.3% respectively, indicate that the long-awaited market recovery is still not apparent. The Welsh property market also shows a distinct lack of vigour. Home prices there have risen by a mere 1.9% over the last year, a long way behind the mix-adjusted average price rise for England and Wales of 6.9%. (Oct 15)”
LSL A “reawakening of price growth has been driven by London and the South East, the fastest growing regions across England and Wales. East Anglia has experienced the strongest year-on-year rise of any region, with a 6.2% annual increase in house...Despite the uptick in transactions during the second half of 2015, total sales volumes are still down by 4% over the first ten months of 2015, compared to the same period in 2014..The rate of change in the growth of transactions from Q3 2014 to Q3 2015 ranges from +3% in the North to -5% in East Anglia, with England & Wales as a whole being down by -2%. The rate of change in transactions in the north of the country remains positive, while the south-east corner shows a considerable decline in the number of properties being sold, possibly due to a shortage of available stock and affordability issues. (Oct 15)”
Hometrack “It is dangerous to read too much into one month’s headline results data but at a city level the average rate of in the last three months has slowed across thirteen of the twenty cities covered by the index. The discount between asking and achieved prices averages 3%. Newcastle and Liverpool have the largest discount averaging 6% [while] Cambridge is registering a small premium of 2% as strong demand and scarce supply are sustaining the highest city level price growth. The majority of cities have average prices between +18% in Bristol and -14% in Liverpool. Belfast prices still remain almost half the level seen in 2007 while those in London are 43% higher highlighting there is no such thing as a single UK housing market. (Sept 15)”
Land Registry “The region with the most significant annual price increase is London with a movement of 9.6 per cent. The North East saw the only annual price decrease of 0.3 per cent. London also experienced the greatest monthly price rise with a movement of 1.8 per cent. The North East also saw the only monthly price decrease with a fall of 0.3 per cent. (Sept 15)”
Download the full report for November 2015
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