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UK house prices creep up month on month and year on year
UK house prices increased by 0.4% in July and annual property price growth edged up to 3.5%, according to the latest residential index from the Nationwide building society. The monthly rise follows a slight dip of 0.2% that was recorded in June and takes the average price of a home to £195,621. While annual growth has increased from the 3.2% recorded the previous month. According to Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist, after moderating over the past 12 months, there are tentative signs that annual house price growth may be stabilising close to the pace of earnings growth, which has historically been around 4%. ‘This would bode well for a sustainable increase in housing market activity, though whether this will be maintained will depend on whether building activity can keep pace with increasing demand,’ he said. He pointed out that the outlook on the demand side remains encouraging. ‘Employment growth has remained relatively robust in recent quarters, and, after a prolonged period of subdued growth, wage growth is also edging up. With consumer confidence buoyant and mortgage rates still close to all-time lows, demand for housing is likely to firm up in the quarters ahead,’ he explained. But he added that it remains unclear whether activity on the supply side will catch up with demand. ‘The number of new homes under construction has started to pick up, albeit from historically low levels, and further increases are required if a sustainable recovery in the housing market is to be maintained over the longer term,’ said Gardner. The July index report also reveals the effect of significant changes to the stamp duty paid on sales which were introduced six months ago, resulting in bunching relating to the new tax thresholds. Gardener explained that the old slab structure used to result in significant distortions with a clustering of transactions at the tax thresholds. Under that system, paying £1 more would result in significant additional stamp duty being due. For example, paying £1 over the £250,000 or the £500,000 threshold used to trigger an additional £5,000 of tax. ‘Even though the change to SDLT only came into effect six months ago, the impact on the pattern of transactions is already evident, with much less bunching of transactions around the £125,000, £500,000 and in particular the £250,000 price points,’ he said. ‘Moreover, based on the first six months of transactions data from the Land Registry, nearly 235,000 purchasers in England and Wales have paid less tax under the new regime, with an average benefit of around £1,800,’ he added. He pointed out that the benefits are greatest in the South of England where average house prices are higher. ‘We estimate that around 85% of transactions in London, the South West and South East have benefited from the changes, compared with around 55% in the North, Yorkshire and Humberside, and the North West of England,’ said Gardner. ‘However, we estimate that around 5,000 or 2% of purchasers paid more, two thirds of whom… Continue reading
Survey suggests UK tenants concerned about rent rises due to change of tax regime
Tenants in the UK are concerned about rent rises resulting from the recent decision by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to scrap mortgage tax relief for private sector residential landlords. New research shows that some 38% of tenants are feeling uncertain as to how the cuts will affect them and over 50% are calling for greater rent control measures to be introduced. Indeed 35% of tenants say that they would move to a different property in the event of a rent increase, according to the research from comparison website Makeitcheaper. A breakdown of the survey findings show that just 20% of tenants would stay in their current housing, one in 10 said they would be forced to seek council housing and 17% would be more motivated to buy their own property. These results show that landlords may run a high risk of losing tenants by increasing rent, around 80%, as many would be simply unable to afford a price hike. There are certain rules around rent price increases that landlords must adhere to. For example, landlords cannot raise prices in a fixed term tenancy prior to the end date, without the tenant's agreement. But, even with these precedents in place, there's a good chance that tensions between landlord and tenant could grow in the event of price rises. However, the latest landlord research by buy to let lender Paragon Mortgages has revealed that 75% of landlords are confident their tenants will not get into more difficulty in the next 12 months as rental arrears will remain stable. The lender’s PRS Trends Survey results for the second quarter showed a 4% increase in those landlords who felt tenant rental arrears would remain stable, the third successive improvement. The proportion of landlords reporting an expected increase remained low and unchanged from the previous quarter at 8% whilst those landlords expecting a decline in arrears was 6%. The survey also revealed that 17% of landlords are planning to purchase additional rental properties over the summer quarter. There was little movement in the most popular property types landlords are looking to buy, with terraced properties and semi-detached houses topping the list at 38%, followed by 35% looking to buy apartments. ‘Landlords continue to experience strong tenant demand and are keen to add to their portfolios. The positive signals being picked up elsewhere around the economy also seem to have flowed through to the PRS with landlords experiencing low arrears and low, stable voids,’ said John Heron, director of Paragon Mortgages. Continue reading
Two tier house prices growth continues in Australia led by Sydney and Melbourne
The two tiered growth evident across Australia’s housing markets continued in July with Sydney and Melbourne driving home values higher, the latest monthly index shows. The CoreLogic RP Data Home Value Index increased by 2.8% month on month and 11.1% year on year and the total aggregated value of Australian housing increased by just over half a trillion dollars over the past 12 months to $6 trillion. Melbourne has traded places with Sydney to record the highest rate of capital gain, with values in the city up 6.1% over the three months ending in July, the highest rolling quarterly rate of growth since the three months ending August last year when values grew 6.4%. Growth in Sydney wasn’t quite as strong over the rolling quarter, up 5.4% but still the highest rate of growth since the March quarter this year when it was 5.8%. ‘To date, the capital cities have seen remarkable differences over the growth cycle which broadly commenced at the end of May 2012 and since that time dwelling values across our combined capitals index have increased by 30.4%,’ said Tim Lawless, CoreLogic RP Data’s head of research. Sydney values are 47.9% higher over the current cycle and Melbourne values are 32.1% higher while every other capital city has seen growth of less than 13% over the same period. Lawless explained that this highlights the extent to which the Sydney and Melbourne markets have outperformed other markets over the past three years. He pointed out that over the last year several cities have seen price corrections. Darwin has seen values falling the most, down by 5.3% while in Perth values also drifted lower over the year, down 0.3%. At the same time, the annual rate of capital gain in Sydney reached a new cyclical high with home values moving 18.4% higher over the year to the highest annual rate of growth for Sydney since the 12 months ending in December 2002. The strongest growth conditions outside of Sydney and Melbourne have been in Brisbane where dwelling values were 3.9% higher over the year. Based on the median dwelling price, Sydney prices are now 72% higher than Brisbane’s and Melbourne’s are 24% higher. Detached housing continued to outperform the unit sector, with house values substantially outperforming unit values over the past year apart from Hobart and Darwin. Detached home values are up 11.6% compared with a 7.2% increase in unit values over the past year. The differential is most pronounced in Melbourne where house values have surged 12.3% higher over the year compared with a 4.8% rise in unit values. ‘The higher growth rates for houses compared with units is likely to be supply related, with the underlying land component driving detached housing values higher at a time when new apartment supply has seen a substantial boost from new construction,’ Lawless said. While dwelling values continue to rise across most cities, the pace of rental growth has slipped to a new record low, which has… Continue reading
