UK House Prices Situation: Asking prices fell 1.0% in September

UK House Prices Forecast: Continued falls throughout UK as housing market is tied to credit crisis

Rightmove: "Housing Market is in Limbo"

Property website Rightmove's latest house price index shows that property asking prices fell by 1.0% in September - following their 2.3% fall in August. Fewer new properties were listed by estate agents in September than ever before in Rightmove's history.

Rightmove's Commercial Director, Miles Shipside said that "We are now seeing the lowest level of new sellers for years" and predicted that things will not improve "until financial institutions address the disastrous state of the mortgage funding markets".

The Rightmove report also shows that the recently confirmed Stamp Duty holiday has made virtually no difference to the market, with an increase of just 0.5% in the number of properties for sale that are exempt from Stamp Duty. Miles Shipside described the scheme as "just tinkering at the edges of the system".

One impending change that could affect the market, however, is the requirement for all properties on sale from October 1st to have an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate). This applies to properties that were on the market before the much-criticised HIPs (Home Information Packs) were introduced.

Rightmove's statistics show that almost 100,000 properties have been on the market since before HIPs were introduced and thus are likely to have no Energy Performance Certificate. Homeowners with 'stale' properties that haven't sold will have to pay for an EPC to be provided for their home.

Rightmove's Miles Shipside expects that this will lead to many estate agents advising these sellers to either "take the property off the market or reduce the asking price fairly drastically in line with today's market prices". He observed that this could, ironically, help to reduce unsold stock levels and improve market conditions.

Read about UK House Price indexes / key statistics that track the ups and downs of house prices

Read our take on the Credit Crisis the effect on UK House Prices and Mortgages. A Special Report

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