House Price Update 15 January 2012

UK House Prices Situation: Few houses coming to market

UK House Prices Forecast: 2012 is likely to mirror 2011 in most areas

New Seller Numbers Reach Record Lows

Estate agents are marketing an average of just one new property per branch, per week, according to the latest figures from property website Rightmove.

Rightmove says that despite this, search activity on the site is up 27% on the same period last year – a trend which Miles Shipside, Rightmove's Commercial Director, attributes to "pent-up demand held back by ongoing mortgage famine".

However, Shipside notes that "this doesn't necessarily indicate a surge in proceedable buyer numbers".

Rightmove's figures for January show that Wales (-2.8%) and the South West (-3.5%) have seen the biggest price falls over the last month, while Yorkshire and Humberside has seen the biggest average increase in asking price, at 1.9%.

Estate Agents Expect Falling Prices In Q1 2012

New figures from RICS show that 24% more surveyors [estate agents] expect prices to fall than to rise over the next three months.

According to RICS latest UK housing survey, London continues to be the only region of the UK seeing house price gains, with a net balance of surveyors in all other regions reporting falling prices. The West Midlands is experiencing the worst falls, with 47% more surveyors reporting falling prices than rising prices in this area.

Estate agents' stock levels of unsold properties are also declining. Average unsold stock per estate agent fell from 73.1 last month to a current average of 67.7 – a fall of nearly 8% in one month. This suggests more properties are being sold than are coming to market.

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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