UK housing market measure worst since 1990-RICS
British surveyors are recording falling housing prices by the worst margin since the market crashed in 1990, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors said on Tuesday. During the past three months, only four percent of surveyors reported prices rising, while 57 percent said they were falling, a net balance of minus 53 percent.
When adjusted for seasonal factors, the net balance was minus 64.1 percent, the worst figure for the housing market that the RICS survey has recorded since June 1990 when house prices began a half-decade slump. January’s figure was -54.8 percent.
Stocks of unsold property are piling up on surveyors’ books at the fastest rate in nearly 20 years, suggesting prices have further to fall. Surveyors said they each had an average of 92 homes on their books – the highest level since October 1998 – while recording an average of only 24.4 sales during the three month period on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Stocks of unsold property jumped by more than 8.5 percent, the fifth consecutive monthly increase of more than 8 percent. The stock of unsold homes has now risen by 48.6 percent over the past 12 months, the steepest rise in unsold property since 1989.
British house prices have tripled over the last 10 years, but the market has slowed over the past year, with many first time buyers no longer able to afford a house and lenders tightening up requirements for mortgages. With credit scarce on global markets, mortgage interest rates not fallen despite a cut of half a percentage point in the Bank of England’s lending rate since December.
Some lenders have raised the deposits they require for first-time buyers seeking the cheapest loans. But although prices have already begun falling month-to-month, Britain has yet to experience a year-on-year fall like the slump that has hit the United States. Finance minister Alistair Darling said last week that Britain’s housing market was slowing but remains “fundamentally strong”. (Editing by David Christian-Edwards)
Reuters Tuesday March 11 2008, LONDON
By Peter Graff
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