Tag Archives: news
UK asking prices reach new high of £307,033
Average UK asking prices increased by 1.3% or £3,843 in April compared to the previous month and are up 7.3% year on year, according to the latest index figures. This takes the price of an average home to a record high of £307,033 with market activity having been pushed up due to a rush by buy to let investors to beat the April stamp duty change, says the index report from Rightmove. Indeed, the stamp duty deadline gave an early impetus to the bottom of the market and this had the knock-on effect of energising the higher sectors of the market as growth was driven by second-stepper and top of the ladder sectors. The report also says that smaller properties in the first time buyer and buy to let sector actually saw a month on month price drop of 1.4%. But overall while buy to let demand will not have gone it remains high overall with record visits on Rightmove in March. ‘The further demand boost from those looking to complete before 01 April has now dissipated, resulting in a 1.4% drop this month in the average price of a property coming to market in the first time buyer and investor sector,’ said Miles Shipside, Rightmove director and housing market analyst. ‘However, the momentum it created looks to have enabled owner occupiers of these properties to trade up. This has built an onward chain reaction of higher demand in higher price brackets as more people can move,’ he explained. He also pointed out that upwards price pressure has moved into the typical second stepper sector of three or four bedrooms excluding four bedroom detached properties. Prices are up by 0.6% or £1,512 this month, and this sector compared to the others has seen the largest year on year rise of 8.6% or £20,519. Meanwhile top of the ladder sector of four bedroom detached and five bedrooms or more has seen the biggest rise this month, up by 1.9% or £9,970. Their annual rate of increase remains the lowest however, at 5.1%. ‘While some felt that there would be a stampede of existing landlords selling to other landlords, these figures indicate that many of those who sold during the buy to let rush were actually first time sellers looking to trade up,’ said Shipside. ‘They used the heightened demand from investors competing fiercely with first time buyers to springboard themselves onto the next rung of the housing ladder. After several years of being held back from moving by post credit crunch price doldrums, they have now benefitted from a heady combination of price growth, historically cheap interest rates, and confidence of a quick sale with purchasers working to a tight deadline,’ he pointed out. ‘Trader uppers have now been unleashed and this has spread demand upwards and helped to form longer chains. Interestingly there has been a stamp duty double whammy effect pushing up prices in these higher sectors too. Earlier reforms in December 2014… Continue reading
Property sales in Canada reach record all-time high in March
Residential property sales in Canada increased by 1.5% in March month on month while average sale prices are up over 15% year on year, the latest index shows. The month on month 1.5% sales rise to set a new all-time record in March but there were some falls, most notably a decline of 0.3% in Greater Vancouver and a fall of 1.8% in the Greater Toronto Area although both remain near record highs reached the month before. The data from the index from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) also shows that sales in March were up from the previous month in about 60% of markets, including Victoria, Chilliwack, the Okanagan Region, Edmonton, Calgary, Woodstock-Ingersoll, Kingston, Barrie and Montreal. ‘Greater Vancouver and the GTA are heading into the spring home buying season with soaring demand and a shortage of listings,’ said CREA president Cliff Iverson. ‘Meanwhile, other major urban markets in Canada are well balanced or are amply supplied,’ he added. Gregory Klump, CREA chief economist, pointed out that single family home sales in the Lower Mainland of BC and the GTA set new records for March in the range between $500,000 and $1 million as did sales above a million dollars. ‘Sales below a half a million dollars, which were not subject to recently tightened mortgage regulations, are being increasingly restrained in these markets by a short supply of listings. If current sales and listings trends persist, price gains may pick up further this spring,’ he explained. Actual, not seasonally adjusted, sales activity was up 12.2% from one year ago and set a new record for the month of March. It also stood 14.2% above the 10 year average for the month. It surpassed year ago levels among nearly two thirds of all local markets, with BC’s Lower Mainland and the GTA contributing most to the year on year increase in national activity. Sales in a number of other markets in BC and Ontario also posted double digit gains, with Chilliwack sales double what they were one year ago. The Aggregate Composite house price index rose by 9.1% year on year, the biggest gain since June 2010. For the second consecutive month, year on year price growth accelerated for all Benchmark property types tracked by the index. Two storey single family home prices posted the biggest year on year gain at 10.8% followed by townhouse/row units up 8.6%, one storey single family homes up 8.1% and apartment units up 7.3%. The data also shows that year on year price growth continues to vary widely among housing markets tracked by the index, with nine of the 11 markets tracked by the index having posted year on year price gains in March. Greater Vancouver saw growth of 23.2% while prices were up 22.1% in the Fraser Valley, up 11.6% in Greater Toronto, up 10.8% in Victoria and up 7.1% in Vancouver Island. Prices fell by 3.7% in Calgary and by 2.7% in Saskatoon. Smaller price growth… Continue reading
Irish property market recovery leads to boost in planning applications granted
In yet another sign that the residential property market in Ireland is recovering, planning permission for new dwellings increased by over 95% in the final quarter of 2015. The data from the Central Statistics Office show 4,017 applications were permitted compared with 2,057 units for the same period in 2014, an increase of 95.3%. A breakdown of the figures shows that the permissions were granted for 2,754 houses in the fourth quarter of 2015 and 1,905 in the fourth quarter of 2014, an increase of 44.6%. In terms of apartments some 1,263 units were granted compared with 152 units for the same period in 2014, an increase of 730.9%. One off houses accounted for 22.7% of all new planning permissions granted in the final quarter of 2015, the data also shows. The total number of planning permissions granted for all developments was 4,470. This compares with 3,504 in the fourth quarter of 2014, an increase of 27.6%. Total floor area planned was 1,468 thousand square metres in the fourth quarter of 2015. Of this some 40.9% was for new dwellings, 46.8% for other new constructions and 12.3% for extensions. The total floor area planned increased by 94.7% in comparison with the same quarter in 2014. Planning Permissions for new buildings for Agriculture increased to 420 on the quarter compared to 165 permissions in the same quarter of 2014. Continue reading
