House Price Spy Blog

The latest house price figures are slightly misleading and confusing, prices in England have risen faster than at any time in the previous five years! But as mentioned this is based on a record low in sale numbers and this could fluctuate wildly, will we see the press fall on these variations as another recession?

I think that we can see that there has been a little recovery of seller confidence, when this rises further we will see a reliable rise in prices, the more property on the market the more it becomes a buyers market and prices are sure to fall.

External financial factors such as unemployment and stallled pay rises are all more important to the stability of the country that rising house prices. Lending to small businesses and mortgages are down significantly meaning there are still people being sceptical about the quick recovery the UK is experiencing.

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Property prices keep on rising but financial experts are reminding everyone that this is based on record low numbers of sales rather than high demand. The number of properties going on the market is falling to its lowest for years and the figures on rising sale price are based on the demand for this small number of properties.

In addition, I will remind you that the summer is the traditional sale season and after that peak is over we may even see some sort of fall in the low number of sales. With number of sales (17,000 for england and 2,500 for scotland, just 865 for Wales) down to a third of their previous value the average sold price will fluctuate wildly as the market varies. To get a reliable figure we need more sales, which is were the government come in, low interest rates are fine to try to promote spending but anyone paying a tiny mortgage is hardly going to move home when their new mortgage will be 5-10x as large. Many people are staying put while the low interest rates last, and saving the money for a later day. Many are predicting that a rise in interest rates could see a boom in property sales some time early in 2010.

The government need to get the market back on track, there are still plenty of new houses being built and this could be the way to get the market working plus the LIFT scheme and others.

Negative equity is back with over 3.5 million people unable to move home due to falling house prices, high bank charges on fixed rate mortgages and the fall in the number of mortgages granted in 2009. A further 2 million people have less than 10% equity in their property, meaning that 1 in 10 of the UK population is stuck where they are for the moment!!

With figures like that its no wonder the property sector is finding life so hard, unemployment and repossesions adding to the woes of the public.

Unemployment has reached 2.44 millions up 220,000 which is a 14 year high! The brittle recovery in the property market will be reliant on public confidence and higher mortgage lending.

There are some really promising signs of sustained ‘growth’ in the UK property market with the smart money now being on a relative recovery during 2009, figures from the Halifax show that there has been an 8% rise in property values since February and a 3.3% rise in the last 3 months alone.

This is based on a total fall of around 20% since the problems started in 2008. Just to crash this party, many analysts are predicting a fall after the rise. But this could be explained by the busy summer period being over. With more money in the finance industry, more consumer confidence and hopefully a few lessons being learned in the industry!

There is certainly a bit of a feel good factor coming back to property sales, property related services and even unrelated financial services.

Lenders have been heavily criticised for capitalising on the troubles in mortgage lending and the industry in general to profit from already hard up cusomers. Below are just a few of the ways we have been short changed by lenders:

Most borrowers are paying £1000 more than they would usually be, fixed/capped rate mortgages especially!!

Lenders have been charging £100 per session for debt counselling!

Lenders have been too quick off the mark in repossesions.

The whole Payment Protection Insurance cash in.

Bank charges have risen as banks try to claw back their profits.

For the first time since the credit crunch turned into a recession way back in 2007! The average price of a home in England is now over £170,000. The average sale price in Scotland being over £122,000, the average price in wales being £125,000. However the prices in England have fluctuated more and seem to be more effected by market forces than Scotland or Wales. Wales in particular has been up and down by just a few thousands during the last 18 months.

It looks like price are going to start rising steeply in 2010, so if you are venturing onto the property market then this will be the time to do it, especially if you are a first time buyer.

The housepricespy.com team are working on significant developments for the website which will see our members benefiting with extra services unlike those offered by any other site, you will still get all the neat stuff you get now but with added services relevant to property.

Fancy £80 a year utility bills? Cutting your home utility bills dramatically is something most households in the UK would like to do, but £80 per year without spending your whole life under a duvet in the dark is a real possibility with modern eco houses with solar panels, roof insulations, modern energy efficient appliances and modern windows and wall cavity insulations and many more!! This is not space age pie in the sky stuff this is the way it will be in 20 years time.

All new houses have to be built to exacting standards of eco-ness, and the government EU are giving grants for eco upgrades for existing houses so we are moving in the right direction.

Saving money on your bills is just one reason to get eco:

Cut down noise from outside with insulation!

Add value to your home!

Make the energy companies get their act together!

You could not write this stuff! On the the same day that Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs was freed the Bank of England have announced that the Pound has been devalued by 28% by injecting £50 billion which the government has termed ‘Quantitive Easing’. So even if Ron managed another job it would not now be worth having!!

This move has come as the recovery seems to have faltered in the last month or so, it had been predicted that significant growth would be seen in the production sector by this time, lending to businesses is lower than ever however many businesses are choosing to ‘under finance’ rather than take chances in the current climate.

The public funded Northern Rock has announced record losses, but has paid back money to the public coffer quicker than expected. Alistair Darling has warned banks to reduced charges and fees with most mortgage holders paying an extra of 2.6% adding up to an extra £1,800 per year!

Just a quick blog to let everybody know that you can still get free alerts on all the streets, areas and houses you are interested! Just add results pages to your alerts list at My Alerts. You save as many as you want, change the radius around that result and modify the alert at any time!!! This service is free for all members of House Price Spy….membership of the site is also 100% free!

You can create your own site which means you can tailor the site to work better for you, saving you time and getting the most out of this great free utility! You can compare, get alerts on and view results from any number of properties, streets, areas, regions or countries you want just add them into your preferences and away you go!

Also, we will be adding some great new features in the months to come which will be industry firsts and bring our members even more! We will be bringing in a range of services that take House Price Spy to the next level and have never been tried on any property site before so look forward to that one!

Spread the word to your friends, family and work buddies about House Price Spy!!