Tag Archives: real-estate
UK house prices set to keep rising in 2016 due to shortage of supply
House prices in the UK are set to continue rising during 2016 due to a lack of available housing stock in the property market, according to the latest index report. There are 47% fewer properties currently for sale than in December 2007 and 16.1% fewer than in December 2014, the data from Home.co.uk’s asking price index shows. The firm says that this is creating ‘a vicious circle’ of price hikes that are set to continue throughout 2016, and follows a rise of 8% in England and Wales' property prices in 2015. Already, regions with the biggest shortages of available housing for sale are experiencing the quickest price rises, with the East of England in particular set for continued rapid price hikes next year. Overall the firm is predicting price growth of 9% in England and Wales with the highest of 13% in the East of England, followed by 12% in the South East, 9% in Greater London and 7% in both Scotland and the West Midlands. The rest of the country is likely to see more moderate growth with just 1% in the North East, 2% in Wales, the North West and Yorkshire and Humber and 6% in the East Midlands and the South West. A breakdown of the data shows that between November 2010 and November 2015, the supply of property in the East slumped by 27%, while prices in the region increased by 10.6% over 2015. Scotland's housing supply fell by 13% between November 2010 and November 2015. Other areas where the supply of properties for sale dried up over the same period include the East Midlands, which saw a fall of 12%, and the West Midlands, where supply dropped by 11%. The South East is another region to experience a drought in the volume of property for sale, with supply falling 10% over the same period while only two areas saw an increase in housing stock for sale between November 2010 and November 2015 with a rise of supply of 10% in Yorkshire and the Humber and 2% in Wales. For 2016, Home.co.uk is predicting a similar range of regional price rises as seen in 2015. However, due to further contractions in supply, the East of England and the South East are expected to outperform Greater London over the next 12 months. Buyers in Scotland, the West and East Midlands and the South West are advised to brace themselves for a year of rapid price growth as the supply crisis ripples out to these regions. Meanwhile, typical time on the market has also fallen due to this imbalance between high demand and low supply. In England and Wales, the typical time on the market in December this year is 104 days, compared to 110 days a year ago. ‘Next year is set to see the vicious circle of spiralling prices and falling supply deepen even further as buyers take advantage of cheap credit to chase ever fewer properties,’ said the firm’s… Continue reading
Number of British homes worth £1 million or more up 14% since beginning of year
The number of home owners in Britain whose property is worth £1 million or more has increased by 75,796 or 14% since January, according to the latest research. This 14% rise over the past year takes the total number of British so called property millionaires to 622,939, and means that 2.2% of all home owners have a property worth £1 million or more, up 1.9% over the past year. Of these million pound home some 82% are situated in London and the South East, a breakdown of the data from property website Zoopla shows. But Wales has the fewest and the number in Scotland have fallen by 4.5%. London, long the nation’s property powerhouse, has once again dominated the property millionaire league, with well over half (61%) of Britain’s million-pound piles located in the capital. In total, 380,337 homes in the city are now above the million-pound threshold, marking a 33,871 – or 10% increase – since the start of the year. Within London the boroughs with the highest number of property millionaires are notoriously expensive areas such as Westminster with 51,607 and Kensington and Chelsea with 44,972 but they have seen the smallest rise in £1 million plus properties of any borough over the past year, up just 0.9% and 0.6% respectively. Meanwhile, the boroughs that experienced the greatest increases of over 55% are within the top 10 lowest average priced boroughs in London including Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Redbridge and Waltham Forest, Outside of London, the East of England and Yorkshire and the Humber saw the largest increases of million pound properties, up 28% and 24% respectively since January. At the other end of the spectrum, Wales has the fewest million pound properties in Britain with only 1,404 in total despite, an 11% rise since January. Scotland was the only country to see a decrease in number of million pound homes in 2015, falling 4.5% to below 9,000 since the start of the year. ‘It's interesting to see that areas such as the East of England and Yorkshire have seen bigger percentage rises in the numbers of property millionaires over the last 12 months compared with the south which typically dominates each year,’ said Lawrence Hall of Zoopla. ‘However the number of properties valued at more than £1 million in the south still outweigh the rest of Britain boosted by wealthy hotspots such as Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster,’ he pointed out. ‘With an improving economy and the ongoing lack of housing supply, this continues to put upward pressure on house prices at all levels of the market and has nudged a whole new raft of properties over the £1 million mark. A price tag that was once the exclusive preserve of stately homes or massive mansions is now an increasingly common label for more modest houses, particularly in London,’ he added. Continue reading
Sales and prices in Canada still rising but market is balanced, says CREA
Home sales in Canada increased by 1.8% month on month in November with the number of new listings also rising, up 3.1% compared with October, the latest index figures shows. Prices also increased, up by 10.2% year on year but this figure is affected by prices in Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto as when they are excluded the annual price growth is 3.4%. The data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) also shows that year on year sales were up 10.9% and overall the housing market remains balanced. There was a fairly even split between the number of markets where sales posted a monthly increase and those where sales declined. The national increase was again led by monthly sales gains in the lower mainland of British Columbia and in the Greater Toronto Area. Sales activity was down sharply in the Calgary region compared to what were historically high levels posted prior to the collapse in oil prices while the number of newly listed homes rose 3.1% led by the Lower Mainland, Calgary, Edmonton, Kingston and Ottawa. ‘Recently announced changes to mortgage regulations will likely boost sales activity in the short term, as buyers jump off the fence to beat the changes before they take effect next year,’ said CREA president Pauline Aunger. Meanwhile, CREA chief economist Gregory Klump pointed out that changes to mortgage regulations taking effect in the middle of February next year are aimed at cooling the Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto housing markets. ‘Minimum down payments will be going up for homes that sell for more than half a million dollars, so larger more expensive housing markets will be affected most. Unfortunately, the regulatory changes will also cause unintended collateral damage to housing markets beyond Toronto and Vancouver, including places that are facing economic headwinds from the collapse in oil prices,’ he explained. The national sales to new listings ratio eased to 57.3% in November compared to 58% in October. A sales to new listings ratio between 40% and 60% is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively. The ratio was within this range in slightly fewer than half of all local housing markets in November. Of the remainder, more markets recorded a ratio above 60% than fell below 40%. Markets where demand is tight relative to supply are located almost exclusively in British Columbia and Ontario. The number of months of inventory is another important measure of the balance between housing supply and demand. It represents the number of months it would take to completely liquidate current inventories at the current rate of sales activity. There were 5.4 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of November 2015, down from the 5.5 months recorded in October and the lowest level in nearly six years. The national figure is being pulled lower by increasing market tightness in British Columbia and Ontario, according to the index. A… Continue reading
