UK house prices continue to decline
Nationwide has reported a 15 consecutive fall in UK house prices, with confirmation of a 1.3% reduction in prices in January, and the UK land registry house price index also revealed a 2% reduction in prices in December and a revision of the November fall from 1.9% to 2.1%. The Nationwide figures show an annual fall of 15.9% while the land registry index shows a drop of 13.5% over the same period.
It would appear that 2009 has continued very much in the vein of 2008 with very little interest from buyers and sellers drip feeding their properties onto the market at ever lower prices. The ongoing accumulation of unsold properties means that there is likely to be a time lag between a recovery in UK economy and a recovery in the UK property sector. We also await assistance from the UK banking sector with UK mortgage approvals down by over 50% over the last 12 months and unlikely to pick up substantially in the short term.
It is also rather telling that despite the collapse in the UK exchange rate, demand from overseas investors for UK property has not increased significantly of late. In a reflection of these difficult times it is also interesting to see that the constant reduction in UK property prices is no longer grabbing headlines as it did just a few months ago, suggesting that many have now resigned themselves to the fact that UK property may be dead in the water for the short to medium term.
Share this..
Related stories
The price of gold falls on US rescue package
As we mentioned on a previous post, gold has been a counter cyclical play for many investors in troubled times. The price has proved to be very resilient and moved higher and higher over the last few months as the worldwide recession got worse and worse. However, interestingly we saw a 2.4% pullback today when the US Senate announced a $780 billion rescue plan for the US economy. So have we seen t...
Read MoreQuarter of Brits 'would move overseas to save'
One in four first-time buyers would move abroad to live frugally while saving for a deposit on a home in Britain, according to National Savings and Investments' (NS&I) latest survey.Young people were found to be the most mobile group with one in four willing to consider emigration, even as far as New Zealand and Australia, while more than a third of people aged 25 to 34 would consider relocating i...
Read MoreScottish Council defrauded out of £100,000
South Lanarkshire Council has been conned out of more than £100,000 by fraudsters who posed as one of the council's supplies. It is unclear exactly what happened but the eventual outcome was that the council is more than £100,000 out of pocket and the threat posed by fraudulent activity in the UK is in focus now more than ever. It is believed that up to 3 million people a year are defrauded i...
Read MoreHouse prices 'drop 2.6%'
Halifax announced today that UK house prices have fallen again.According to the lender's latest monthly index, the value of the average home stood at around £164,000 in November.This is 14.9 per cent down on November 2007 and 2.6 per cent down on October 2008.Martin Ellis, chief economist at Halifax, suggested that the credit crunch and economic slowdown were big factors behind the continuing dow...
Read MoreGDP slip prompts UK economy pessimism
Britain's economy did not grow as quickly as had been estimated in the final quarter of 2006.UK GDP fourth-quarter growth was 0.7 per cent, 0.1 per cent less than previous estimates, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).This meant total GDP growth in 2006 reached 2.8 per cent, driven by consumer spending.Richard Snook of the Centre for Economics and Business Research...
Read More