| UK
House Prices Situation: Generally flat in most areas
UK
House Prices Forecast: Likely to fall nationally through
2008
Rightmove
Publishes Optimistic House Price Figures
Property
website Rightmove has this week published its latest House
Price Index, providing a guide to property asking prices
in England and Wales.
Somewhat
surprisingly, average asking prices are up 3.2% on last
month, with the average annual increase for the last year
now standing at 5.8%.
However,
the upbeat headline figures were balanced against other,
more negative trends:
• Properties taking longer to sell than last year
• Increase in average number of properties per
estate agent
Rightmove
also recorded the lowest new listings of property for
sale for three years. The combination of this and an increase
in the average stock levels per estate agent suggest that
the market is stagnating, with fewer properties actually
selling.
It's
also worth remembering that Rightmove tracks asking prices,
not selling prices.
As
always, Rightmove's regional figures made interesting
reading, with all but one region seeing a gain in the
month to February 9th (annual figures in brackets):
•
East Midlands: +5.8% (+2.2%)
• South East: +4.8% (+7.3%)
• West Midlands: +4.6% (+5.5%)
• Yorkshire & Humberside: +3.3% (+2.4%)
• East Anglia: +2.7% (+2.6%)
• Wales: +1.4% (-0.7%)
• South West: +1.3% (+3.4%)
• North West: +0.9% (+0.6%)
• Greater London: +0.9% (+11.7%)
• North: 0.0% (+2.2%)
It's
interesting to note the contrast between monthly and annual
figures across the regions. Some regions have experienced
much stronger annual growth than others
- with Wales even recording a fall in average prices over
the last year.
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