Tag Archives: real estate
Asking prices up slightly in UK with London forging ahead
Average asking prices in England and Wales increased by 0.6% in England and Wales in July while in Scotland there was no change month on month, the latest index shows. London prices increased the most, up 1.5% month on month and 12.5% year on year. In England and Wales the annual price growth was 6.2% and in Scotland it was 3.6%, according to the date from Home.co.uk. This takes the average asking price in England and Wales to £281,497 but in London it is £525,145. In Scotland it is £167,680. The data also shows that the supply of property for sale has fallen across the UK, down by 10% year on year and the South East remains the UK’s fastest regional market, with a typical time on market of 61 days. The UK property market continues to enjoy considerable momentum despite talk of mortgage rates rising in the near future, according to Doug Shephard director at Home.co.uk. He pointed out that a combination of buyer demand and short supply is driving prices higher, but at a lesser rate than last year. ‘The supply crisis is becoming more acute, and July recorded the lowest number of properties entering the market for that month since the onset of the financial crisis. Lack of supply is felt most keenly in London and the East of England, where the volumes of properties entering the market are down 23% and 16% respectively,’ said Shepherd. ‘These and other southern regions are clearly sellers' markets and prices are firmly on an upward trajectory. Marketing times in the South East continue to be the lowest in the country. Indeed, across the nation, marketing times are currently around the lowest we have witnessed since 2008,’ he added. He explained that buyer demand coupled with low numbers of properties entering the market has led to a significant reduction in the total stock for sale. The number of properties on the market in England and Wales is 11% lower than in August last year and 39% less than in August 2007. ‘Hence in the southern regions, where supply problems are most acute, buyers have only half the choice that was afforded to them eight years ago. Ultra low interest rates and other stimulus measures have ensured that more money, largely new debt, is chasing ever fewer properties,’ Shephard said. Whilst national supply levels are at an all-time low and trending down, a more detailed regional analysis of supply shows how this key market driver varies across the nation. What is immediately evident is that those regions which have suffered the greatest reductions in supply over the last seven years have also shown the greatest price growth. Shephard pointed out that along with demand, supply is a key market driver with direct consequences for regional property market performance. London shows the biggest contraction in supply over the last eight years, of 69%. ‘For the buyer, this means that whereas before there were, say, 10… Continue reading
UK housing repossessions continue downward to record low
Residential property repossessions in the UK, already at their lowest since records began, continued to fall in the second quarter of 2015, according to latest data to be published. In that period, the repossession rate was 0.02%, equivalent to just one in 5,000 mortgages and the data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders also shows that arrears continued to fall as well. Overall there were 2,500 properties taken into possession in the second quarter, down from 3,000 the previous quarter and 5,400 in the second quarter of last year. Of these, 1,800 were in the owner occupier market, and 700 in the buy to let market. However, the CML report points out that as in the first quarter, the current flow of repossessions probably continues to remain lower than the underlying trend would imply, even though arrears are also falling. In terms of arrears, the total number of mortgages with arrears equivalent to 2.5% or more of the mortgage balance was 106,400.This equated to 0.96% of all mortgages, again, the lowest rate since quarterly records began in 2008. CML director general Paul Smee pointed out that this is the first quarter in which the CML has been able to publish fully consistent data on arrears and possessions across both the owner occupier and the buy to let markets. As a result of improvements to the underlying data surveys, some back data has been restated. Of all loans with arrears of more than 2.5% of balance some 100,700 were owner occupier and 5,700 buy to let. In both the owner occupier and buy to let markets, the number and proportion of mortgages in arrears fell or remained static in all arrears bands and none experienced a worsening. Continue reading
Home sales in England and Wales up 13% month on month in July
Monthly home sales in England and Wales increased by 13% in July with growth driven by transactions in the North, the latest housing index shows. House prices increased by 0.3% compared to the previous month, taking the average price of a home to £279,515, according to the LSL house price index. On an annual basis the index shows an increase of 3.7%, rising to 4% if London and the South East data is excluded. The data also shows that house prices increased across six regions, led by East Anglia which saw an annual increase of 6.3%. While in Reading prices have risen by 15.2% in the last year which the firm believes is due to it being on the route of the new London Cross Rail project. And in 27% of local authority areas in England prices have reached new peak levels, including Warrington, the West Midlands, Milton Keynes, Bristol, and Devon. It means that England and Wales have experienced their strongest July for home sales since 2007 monthly sales surpassed 2014 levels for first time this year. According to Richard Sexton, director of e.surv chartered surveyors, the housing market recovery is well established although London is no longer leading the growth. Indeed, London is eighth out of the 10 regions in England and Wales in terms of annual rises. London ranks only above the North and Wales with 1.8% price growth year on year in June 2015, which has halved from 3.6% in May. Sexton said that this downtrend in London is now lowering the average growth for England and Wales as a whole. ‘London has been stalled by more aggressive graduated Stamp Duty and taxation levied at the highest rungs of the property market, plus the rising value of Sterling compared to the Euro,’ he explained. The data shows that in the most expensive boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster sales during the second quarter of 2015 were down 33% and 31% respectively year on year. But there are signs of the market bouncing back with property values recording healthy monthly rises of 2.3% and 2.1% in Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster. ‘Overall homes sales reached 90,000 in July, a boost of 13% from the previous month. This marks the first time this year that sales levels have overtaken the equivalent month in 2014 and is actually the strongest July since 2007, when the market was building up to its pre-crisis peak. Sales were 35% higher then, standing at 120,845 in July 2007,’ Sexton pointed out. The North and Yorkshire and Humberside have seen the fastest sales growth, with transactions in the second quarter of the year up 29% and 25% respectively on the previous quarter. It is purchases of detached properties which have seen the biggest quarterly boost and in the North sales of this type of home increased by 41%. However, first time buyer sales have slowed since the start of 2015, and sales of… Continue reading
