Tag Archives: homes
Sales fall in key UK cities and prices start to plateau
Sales in 20 key cities across the UK fell by 2% in the last 12 months but prices have continued to rise, up 10.2% from a year ago, the latest price index shows. London has seen a 7% fall in transactions while Cambridge has seen sales fall by 20%, according to the UK cities house price index from Hometrack. Overall city level house price inflation has increased from 8.6% a year ago largely due to constricted supply. The average UK city house price currently stands at £231,700 ranging from £109,000 in Glasgow to £455,000 across London. However, there are signs that the annual rate of growth in high growth cities in southern England is starting to plateau as the level of housing sales slows and affordability pressures on would-be buyers increase. The report suggest that uncertainty around the forthcoming European Union referendum is likely to slow activity further. Questions remain as to the level to which the campaign will influence households’ decision making and overall levels of housing market activity. The Brexit referendum comes at a time when other policy measures such as higher stamp duty for investors and second home owners are expected to impact market activity from investors who accounted for one in five sales in 2015. ‘Slower growth in sales volumes has been a trend seen over the last three years across the high value, high growth cities such as Cambridge, Oxford, Aberdeen and London where house prices have been rising for six consecutive years,’ said Richard Donnell, Insight Director at Hometrack. ‘High housing and moving costs are limiting access to the market for a growing number of households which, in our view, will result in lower turnover and slower house price growth,’ he added. He believes that the EU referendum adds further complexity to an already complex outlook. ‘Our analysis shows that the Scottish referendum, and the 18 month campaign that preceded it, resulted in 10% fewer transactions and slower house price growth over the period relative to England,’ said Donnell. ‘The shorter run up to the EU vote will help but the true impact will depend on how quickly the campaigning focuses on the economic ramifications for UK households and the knock on effect for housing related decisions as Scotland proved. A vote to remain in the EU should see a return to business as usual whereas a vote to leave will create additional uncertainty,’ he explained. ‘After a three year upturn in housing market activity and house prices the outlook for the market appears increasingly tied up with policy impacts and the potential outcome of the referendum rather than the operation of market forces. Businesses operating in housing face risk and uncertainty which will have to be managed and monitored carefully,’ he added. Continue reading
Home movers in the UK have seen average savings of £5,000 due to stamp duty change
Stamp duty changes have resulted in UK home movers seeing average saving of £5,000 since 2010 but fewer people are moving home, new research has found. The number of people moving house in 2005 stood at 365,000, slightly behind the 366,400 who moved in 2014, according to the latest Lloyds Bank Home Mover Review report. Whilst the 2015 levels are 16% higher than the 2009 market low of 315,800, they are just half of the 2006 peak level of 712,000, the data also shows. Over the past five years the average price paid by home movers has grown by 30% from £210,252 in 2010, to £273,491 in 2015, an increase of £63,239, equivalent to a monthly increase of £1,054. This was a marginally faster rise than the increase in average house prices across the whole market which was 29%. The average deposit put down by a home mover has increased by 22% in the past five years, from £74,649 in 2010 to £91,020 in 2015, equivalent to 33% of the average price paid by home movers. London continues to see stronger growth than the rest of the UK, as average prices paid by home movers in the capital have increased by 51% to £515,004 in the past five years. London home movers have also put down the largest average deposits at £183,353, which is 36% of the average property value. At the other end of the scale, Northern Ireland saw the average price paid by a home mover drop 4% to £157,368, and also the smallest average deposit of £43,380. Stamp duty changes, introduced in December 2014, provided home movers across the UK with a boost by providing buyers with an average saving £4,530 on purchases. The largest savings last year were made by home movers in East Anglia, where someone buying at the average price of £255,028 paid £2,751 in stamp duty fees compared to £7,650 before the change, a difference of £4,899. Buyers in three other regions also made substantial savings of over £2,500. In London the saving was £4,850, in the South West it was £4,654 and in the South East it was £2,767. ‘The 2015 stamp duty changes, low mortgage rates and rising real pay growth, provided more favourable conditions for home movers in 2015, although that hasn’t translated to any increase in numbers,’ said Andrew Mason, Lloyds Bank mortgages director. ‘2015 brought good news to home movers. We might have expected the change to the stamp duty structure to have resulted in a greater numbers. The ongoing increase in house prices throughout the year will have been especially welcomed by those who bought at the peak of house prices, who have been looking to rebuild their equity in order to make their next move,’ he added. The Lloyds Bank Home Mover Review tracks conditions for those who already own a home and is based on data from the Lloyds Banking Group house price database, the Council of Mortgage Lenders,… Continue reading
UK house prices dipped slightly in December, say latest ONS figures
UK house prices increased by 6.7% in the year to December 2015, down from 7.7% in the year to November 2015, according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS). Prices were up year on year by 7.3% in England, by 1% in Wales, and by 1.5% in Northern Ireland but fell by 0.2% in Scotland. The annual growth in England were driven by an annual increase in the East of 9.7%, in London by 9.4% and in the South East by 8.8%. Excluding London and the South East, UK house prices increased by 5.1% in the 12 months to December 2015 but on a seasonally adjusted basis, average house prices decreased by 0.2% between November 2015 and December 2015. The data also shows that in December 2015 prices paid by first time buyers were 6.4% higher on average than in December 2014 while for owner occupiers (existing owners), prices increased by 6.9% for the same period. Average mix-adjusted house prices in December 2015 stood at £301,000 in England, £175,000 in Wales, £193,000 in Scotland and £148,000 in Northern Ireland. According to Peter Rollings, chief executive officer of Marsh & Parsons, existing home owners have every reason to be in high spirits after the tenacious house price growth experienced in 2015 which saw average values break through the £300,000 barrier. He also believes that buyers climbing onto or up the property ladder are hitting the ground running, on the back of favourable mortgage deals and support schemes from the government. ‘In London, we’ve seen new buyer registrations in January increase 24% on last year, which bodes well for purchase activity in the opening months of 2016. Landlords and investors in particular will be in a hurry to secure their preferred property before the additional 3% Stamp Duty becomes liable on second homes in April,’ he said. ‘But with annual house price growth in London just shy of double digits, first time buyers and those trading up also can’t afford to hang about either. The prime central London market has been challenged and unsettled by steeper Stamp Duty, but in lower priced boroughs further out of the centre, high demand and low supply of properties coming up for sale are sustaining strong price rises,’ he added. Adrian Gill, director of Reeds Rains and Your Move estate agents, believes that the property market is developing into the strongest sellers’ market since the recession. ‘December may have weathered the first month on month stumble in house price growth for eight months, but on average, property prices are still increasing at more than twice the pace of earnings, which is certainly jubilant news for existing home owners,’ he said. ‘Potential sellers would be advised to get their property on the market now to take advantage of the spring surge that is already following these figures for December. But rising prices make it tougher for those still hoping to climb onto the… Continue reading
