House Price Spy Blog

The Bank Of England have held the mortgage rate at 0.5%.

This rate has been in place since March of last year and is the lowest in recent memory. With the media full of stories about the revival of the financial sector this is unlikely to be changed with all main political parties commencing their election push for summer 2010 the heat will be on to make the finances of the country look as good as possible by the government.

The economy will be the leading vote winner no doubt about it, despite job losses house prices have recovered considerably and consumer confidence is returning.

The phrase ‘quantitative easing’ has entered the public awareness, £200Bn has been added to the UK economy and the opinions are mixed as to whether the impact will sufficient for the money invested. A similiar effort in Japan was judged to be unsuccessful.

2010 is here and once again we will be concerned with house prices and which direction they will be going in, either recovery to 2007 levels or further downward. Just for a change House Price Spy will give you the most festive prediction yet:

Savills the estate agents are predicting a huge long term price rise of 40% in the next few years creating an average property price of £280,000 from the current £200,000. Prices rose by around 68% in the last 10 years before the fall, and Savills are predicting a 6% rise year on year driven by economic recovery and the lack of new build property. With the lull in the building we are not expecting a change to this factor over the next few years, which will be good for home owners. It should be noted that Savills are an estate agent and its their job to promote the market!!!

As with all the predictions this one is based on pre-election conditions, with the campaigning already underway for a summer election it is easy to prodict that everything will change by the end of the year and whoever is in charge will change legislation pertaining to property and finance. And while we are on the subject why are no two predictions ever the same? Every financial and property prediction is made to get attention for the paper/site/company involved as much as anything so its no surprise they are all different!

Happy New year for 2010! Dont know how much movement their will be over the next month but all the best anyway! This was the year the recovery began in earnest after a dire 2008 hopefully this will be the way things keep going into 2010.

We have plans to add to the new features we have added in 2009, with more free members features to be added, we will announce them as we complete them! Thanks to everyone who has spread the word about House Price Spy, please keep passing on the name to your friends, work mates and family. The site is 100% free!!

2009 saw House Price Spy expand the services we offer to include estate agents listings, city useful links and a new nifty graph system with more stats for every street than ever before! All this and its 100% free! We have no plans to start charging for the site and have some planned updates and additions to members features which we hope to release in 2010!

We are giving you even more, with new way to search, and analyse the data plus new alerts and new features that are not offered by any other website in any sector! Tell your friends, family and work mates about House Price Spy the UK’s best property website!

The site has been live for almost 5 years now and we are seeing a great response from members who love its easy to use system and dont fancy paying for something you can get for free!

2009 in house prices, would be a story of recovery, false dawns and fragility. 2008 left us with a third wiped off the average house price across the UK with some areas feeling the hit even harder. During the early part of the year (April for England, Febuary for Scotland and March for Wales) we saw the start of a gradual rise in prices which is still pretty much with us even if the number of sales this is based on is still at 2008 levels. As you can see from House Price Spy England the number of sales has dropped dramatically in the last month leaving the market even more prone to large fluctuations.

The Government and press have been building up the recovery as a masterwork of tactics, the interest rate is still record low of 0.5% meaning every mortgage payer has a very good reason not to move house with the lowest payments they have had for many years creating spare cash for anyone still in employment. Despite the low interest rate paid for savers and the best efforts of the government to make people spend people are still reluctant to spend their new found surplus.

House prices are still rising but are predicted to stall in 2010, the steady rise back to 2007 prices will continue but not at the hoped rapid recovery rate that would have got the Labour Government out of the firing line.

The press of full of their usual predictions for the new year, where will house prices go in 2010? What will the economy do? I think we can all agree that the recovery will be a slow one now and will last for another year at the very least going certainly into 2011 maybe longer. The reliable elements of the press are predicting that while we wont see house prices fall back in the hole they were in there wont be a magical recovery in 2010, slow rises and stead recovery is the order of the day.

With mortgage holders around £200 better off on average with the low mortgage rate we could be forgiven for staying there they were, government plans to chance tax legislation are targeted for next year and no matter what happens we may see as boost to the sale numbers before that comes in. Could be all the market needs is a little shove in the right direction…

But dont expect much change in 2010, number of sales is still at a record number and sale prices rising slowly but steadily.

HSBC Home Insurance are offering every customer who buys online a 10% online discount and every customer who takes building cover half price contents insurance! You get up to £50,000 contents cover half price!

HSBC Home Insurance are one of the best and most trusted companies with millions of satisfied customers across the UK and the best features as well as the most reliable cover and top customer services 24/7 just when you need it most!

You get: new for old cover, unlimited buildings cover, immediate cover, christmas bonus cover and accomodation provided if needed.

Claim your 10% discount and half price contents cover with HSBC Home Insurance

What will the government do in 2010? Reforms to capital gains tax are hotly tipped for next year will see everyone pay something not just those whose property is valued over £175,000. Plus, since MPs have been caught out, a stop to the practice of ‘flipping’ where landlords change their ‘home’ nominated property to avoid paying a share on the sale. This is thought to be planned by both Tories and Labour, so something they can both agree on!

As you can see from House Price Spy prices are just about stable without many sales, actually they were slightly down over the last month in England but this is to be expected with Christmas coming up and so many people booking holidays. Reliable sources are predicting a gradual rise into 2010 where the trend is se to continue, any hope of a fast recession busting boom will be out of luck but for the long term we are moving in the right direction.

Pass on the word about House Price Spy, free house prices, stats and alerts in your email inbox!

British Gas let you save money on your bills and offer a modern way to keep track of your usage and payments! Save up to £150 when you switch to British Gas! Plus just at the moment they are giving all customers a free electricity monitor to keep track of their usage, you can buy these little beauties in any hardware store and they sure come in useful in figuring out what you are spending your power on! Get one free from British Gas!

With British Gas you can manage your account online, sending your estimates online and making payments online direct. easy! Plus the savings which are on average £150 per year!

British Gas is one of the big names and offer excelent service to their customers.

Claim your free electricity monitor when you sign up with British Gas

With Christmas coming up you might want to ensure that your family has enough to entertainment this year, what with people coming round, time off and the annual energy slump around 3pm on the big day you will need some help. Sky Digital is the UKs leading provider of broadband, TV, HD, phone and a more! You can get your perfect package built just for you!

When you take the basic TV package you get free phone calls and broadband.

Sky Digital are offering you £50 free Marks & Spencer vouchers.

Access to Sky Sports and Sky Movies.

Free Sky Digital HD and Sky+ boxes when you sign up for the services!

Get your Sky Digital access sorted in time for Christmas and keep your family happy this year, and into 2010!