Why so much negativity over the UK housing market?
Today's Nationwide company report confirmed that UK property prices increased by 10.5% in the year to the end of April 2010. Despite the fact that the comparison was against a fairly sluggish April 2009 there is no doubt that UK property prices have improved over the last 12 months. However, there is still an air of negativity around the UK housing market, but why?
For some time now many experts in the property sector have been highlighting the relatively small number of properties available and the relatively high number of buyers in the marketplace. As a consequence, we have seen a number of property prices squeezed higher, when perhaps in normal market conditions there may not have been as much pressure on the upside. When you also take into account the fact that UK unemployment has increased again and is forecast by many to top 3 million this will place enormous pressure on homeowners.
There's also the chance that UK banks will again need to write down the value of their mortgage books and indeed repossessions are likely to continue moving higher and higher for some time to come. On the surface the property market appears to be picking up slowly but surely but underneath there is confusion and concern.
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