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News that Alex Salmond, the leader of the ruling SNP in Scotland, has been somewhat liberal with his recent comments about housing budgets and assistance has caught the attention of opposition...
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Monday 21st May 2007
Property asking prices rose by their lowest monthly rise in 2007 so far thanks partly to uncertainty over the looming implementation of home information packs (Hips), according to Rightmove.
The property website's house price index saw a 0.4 per cent monthly growth on April's figure in May as the average property asking price rose to £237,361.
Sellers anxious to avoid the cost of Hips, due to be introduced on June 1st, are resulting in an upsurge of properties coming on to the market. This has only increased the average estate agent's stock from 59 to 61, however.
"It's all rather confusing at the moment. The future direction of the market is very hard to read with two external influences likely to coincide at once," Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said.
"You have the potential of Hips artificially increasing the supply of property and, within the same month, a six-year high in interest rates potentially depressing the number of buyers.
"However, should Hips go ahead, policymakers should be wary of the effect on the housing market of a further interest rate rise at this sensitive time."
The government's Hips scheme is facing a legal challenge from the property industry, which claims it was not properly consulted on the proposals.
The last-ditch attempt to prevent their introduction comes after months of opposition, which last summer forced the discarding of their most important element, the home condition report.
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