As the long-term goal of unwinding Royal Bank of Scotland's distressed loan book continues the company has revealed plans to offload upwards of £15 billion of property assets a year for the foreseeable future. The company will also be tailing off the vast majority of property loans in the UK and Europe which will unwind the company's loan book going forward, although there are fears of more write-offs in the short to medium term.
The significant reduction in the speed at which UK house prices have been rising, confirmed by the 0.1% increase in June, is beginning to concern many in the UK property arena. While only a few months ago a number of analysts stepped forward with concerns about the potential for a slowdown in the second half of 2010, in many ways these fears were discounted and ignored. However it does look as though relatively low liquidity in the mortgage market together with recent public-sector budget cuts and tax rises may come together to slowdown the UK property market.
A report by the Nationwide today suggests that UK property prices increased by just 0.1% in June citing fears of a potential double dip recession if, as expected, the UK housing market cools in the second half of 2010. This compares with a 0.5% increase, according to the Nationwide, during May and could well be bringing to an end a sustained period of recovery in the UK housing market. So what can we expect in the latter part of 2010?
Property prices in the UK fell during the month of May for the first time since April 2009 giving investors and homeowners an unwelcome reminder that we are not yet out of the woods. While the 0.2% fall covers England and Wales there were specific areas of the UK which experienced falls of 3.6% during May. The average price of a property in England and Wales fell from £165,596 to £165,314, a figure which is still well out of the range of the vast majority of first-time buyers.
UK housing giant Taylor Wimpy has announced an improvement in the UK housing market after a very difficult period just prior to the election. It is well-known that sales in the weeks prior to the last general election fell although it would look as though interest has improved significantly since the new government moved into office. As a consequence, the company is likely to announce like for like sales at the same level as 12 months ago.
Online property sector leader Rightmove has today confirmed a 22% increase in the number of properties for sale after the UK government abandoned home information packs. However, there is a growing belief that the increase in properties for sale may also have something to do with forthcoming changes in the capital gains tax regime which could see landlords taxed more heavily upon the sale of their properties.
Search engine giant Google has today confirmed that residential property listings will be added to its Google maps service. The company claims that "hundreds of thousands" of homes are already being advertised for sale or rent on the Google maps service which is proving to be one of the more popular initiatives of late.
It has been revealed today that the percentage of first-time buyers on the property ladder has fallen to a three-year low of just 35% in April, down from 39% in March. This will come as no surprise to those who follow the mortgage industry where liquidity for first-time buyers has been difficult to obtain for some time with more and more mortgage company's looking for larger deposits.
As we touched on in some of our earlier articles today, the UK property market has on the whole recovered over the last 12 months but the degree of improvement is very varied across different areas of the UK. There is growing concern that both a lack of liquidity in the mortgage market, despite this being a problem for over a year now, as well as a reduction in consumer confidence could well hit the UK property market towards the back end of 2010.
UK property prices are now within 10% of their 2007 peak despite the fact that the UK economy is still struggling. However, it is becoming more and more apparent that the recovery in UK property prices is very fragmented across the UK. London and the South of England have performed better than the North and Scotland although this tends to happen during a recovery phase in the economy.
