Tag Archives: real-estate
House prices drop in Scotland due to new property tax bands
House prices in Scotland fell 1.6% in April, the largest monthly fall since 2009, but sales were up 18% month on month and are 4% higher than a year ago. It means that prices fell £3,000 in April taking the average house price to £184,970 but prices are still 14.6% higher than in the same month in 2014, according to the latest Your Move/Acadata monthly index. The index report points out that much of the change could be due to the introduction of the new Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) in April which saw a lot of sales in the higher price brackets pushed through to avoid paying a higher level of property tax. Indeed, buyers rushed through 83 sales in the £1 million plus sector in March, compared to an average of 12 in a typical month, to beat higher tax. Some 46 were sold in just three days, but no million pound homes were sold in April. The most significant monthly downturn was found in East Lothian, where values dropped 7.2%. The islands of Orkney, Eilean Siar and the Shetlands saw the highest price increases during the month, of 9.1%, 4.8% and 4.4% respectively. Property values also reached a new peak in the Scottish Borders, Highland, and West Dunbartonshire in April. While year on year the biggest increase in prices has been in Edinburgh with growth of 25.5%. ‘Reforming Scottish stamp duty was always going to ruffle a few feathers in the market. After a spectacular 9.4% leap during March ahead of the LBTT, average Scottish house prices subsequently fell by the sharpest fall we’ve seen since March 2009, when the housing market was at the lowest ebb of the housing crisis,’ said Christine Campbell, Your Move managing director in Scotland. ‘The Scottish housing market put on a high-octane performance in March, as high end buyers raced against the clock to snap up million-pound property before the higher rates of stamp duty came into play. This magnified the average price paid in March, but now the market is re-focusing,’ she explained. She pointed out that the drop in prices has cooled annual growth, which slipped from 16.3% in March to 14.6% in April. ‘However, with double digit growth still pervading, the housing recovery doesn’t appear too shaken, and this short-term hiccup has been concentrated in higher priced areas,’ added Campbell. The data shows that there were 8,203 home sales during April, and overall, Scottish sales in both March and April have grown on 2014 levels, bucking the trend across England and Wales, where sales have been consistently falling behind on a yearly basis over the past six months. The figures also show how the change in stamp duty in Scotland has clearly accelerated purchasing decisions to the beginning of the year. For instance, there were 237 more homes sold in Edinburgh during the first quarter of 2015 than the first quarter of last year, of which 130 were larger, detached properties…. Continue reading
Canadian property sales up for fourth month in a row
Nationally home sales in Canada have increased for the fourth month in a row, up 3.1% from April to May and prices are up 8.1% year on year. Actual, not seasonally adjusted, activity is now 2.7% above May 2014 levels although the he number of newly listed homes was little changed from April to May, according to the latest index data from the Canadian Real Estate Association. CREA said that the Canadian housing market remains balanced overall put national figures are being skewed by exceptional prices in Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto. If these are excluded than the year on year price increase is just 2.4%. The data shows that national sales activity is at its highest level in more than five years and transactions were up from the previous month in about 60% of all local markets, led by increases in the Greater Toronto Area, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Montreal. One factor that could be responsible for the sales growth, however, is that “mortgage default insurance premiums increased at the beginning of June and this may have encouraged buyers to complete in May top beat the rise. Year on year price growth accelerated in May in all home categories tracked by the index with the exception of one storey single family homes. Two storey single family homes continue to post the biggest year on year price gains with a rise of 7.18% while the price of one storey single family homes increased by 4.11%, townhouse/row units by 4.09% and apartments by 2.91%. Annual price growth varied among housing markets tracked by the index. Greater Vancouver saw the biggest rise at 9.41% followed by Greater Toronto at 8.9%. Fraser Valley, Victoria, and Vancouver Island all recorded year on year gains of about 4% in May. The data also shows that price gains in Calgary continued to slow, with a year on year increase of just 1.21% in May. This was the smallest gain in more than three years and the eleventh consecutive monthly slowdown in year on year price growth. Elsewhere, prices held steady in Saskatoon and Ottawa, rose slightly in Greater Montreal and fell by about 3% in Regina and Greater Moncton. CREA chief economist Gregory Klump pointed out that sales in and around the Greater Toronto area played a major role in the monthly increase in May sales. ‘At the same time, the rebound in sales over the past few months in Calgary and Edmonton suggests that heightened uncertainty among some home buyers in these housing markets may be easing,’ he said. The number of newly listed homes was virtually unchanged, down 0.2% in May compared to April. The CREA report says that this reflects an even split between housing markets where new listings rose and where they fell, with little monthly change for new listings in most of Canada’s largest and most active urban markets. The national sales to new listings ratio was 57.6% in May, up from a low… Continue reading
London sees steep fall in property price growth, latest ONS figures show
UK house prices increased by 5.5% in the year to April 2015, down from 9.6% in the year to March 2015, according to the latest official figures, but London saw an even steeper decline. The data from the Office of National Statistics shows the growth in prices in London fell from 11.2% in the year to March to 4.3% over the 12 months to April. This is the lowest rate of growth in the capital city since October 2012. A regional breakdown shows that house price annual inflation was 5.8% in England, 1.3% in Wales, 2.2% in Scotland and 8.8% in Northern Ireland. Overall the pace of annual house price growth has fallen across the majority of the UK but increases in England were driven by an annual increase in the East of 9.6% and the South East of 8.4%. Excluding London and the South East, UK house prices increased by 5% in the 12 months to April 2015 and on a seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices fell by 1.3% between March and April 2015. The data also shows that in April 2015, prices paid by first time buyers were 5.8% higher on average than in April 2014. For existing owners prices increased by 5.4% for the same period. Peter Rollings, chief executive officer of Marsh & Parsons, commented that property values in the East and South East of England have seen the biggest boosts on a yearly basis, while annual growth in the capital has more than halved in the month since March. ‘But this was simply part of a wider slowdown submerging the country in April, when we were still wading through competing election promises, and when demand at the highest rungs of the market was being dampened by a possible mansion tax,’ he said. ‘Now the ink has dried on the ballot papers, we’re back onto firmer territory. More recent barometers of the property market indicate favourable conditions with low mortgage rates and cheaper stamp duty costs keeping demand for homes buoyant, and carrying along a tide of buyer confidence,’ he explained. ‘At the frontline of the property market, we’ve already seen a 5% jump in new buyer registrations since May, and we’ll soon see a new offensive in activity levels as a result, which will help the onward march of price growth,’ he added. According to Graham Davidson, managing director of Sequre Property Investment, pre-election jitters and uncertainty will have no doubt been a key factor in London’s slowdown, along with the shift in buying patterns of overseas buyers, who for many years over fuelled the market but are now favouring other areas that offer better and more stable long term returns. ‘Away from London and the south east, the majority of the country is experiencing more modest growth and in areas such as the North West where growth is at 3.1%, there are a wealth of opportunities for those looking to make their capital… Continue reading
