House prices jump by 2.6 percent in April
Rightmove Plc has announced a rise in asking prices by the largest amount for the month of April for three years, as demand exceeded the quantity of desirable properties for sale by UK home sellers.
In an email statement on the 19th of April 2010, the owner of the UK’s largest property website stated an increase in the average house price in England and Wales of 2.6 percent from March to £235,512; further to this, prices in London rose by 1 percent.
The suggestion is that momentum is continuing in the housing market recovery as the election on May 6th fast approaches, however prices may weaken later in the year as more homeowners look to sell once the political situation has settled down.
CPS Homes has continued to make good progress in the sales market, with the sales team performing well week on week, month on month. This is despite the financial crisis and the seemingly low number of properties for sale, thus proving CPS Homes to be the premier Cardiff Estate Agent.
The Commercial Director of Rightmove, Miles Shipside, stated “we forecast overall property supply will continue to rise. If the asking prices continue to rise, all but the most popular locations are building themselves up for some of the gains to be lost later in the year.”
The increase in house prices is in stark contrast to last month, which suffered the smallest gain in asking price for March on record since data began in 2002, at just a 0.1 percent advance. In just one year, the price of houses has risen by 6 percent between April 2009 and April 2010.
Not since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis, has the monthly pace of properties coming onto the market been at the current rate. The average number of unsold properties per estate agent in April rose from 65 in March to 68, according to Rightmove.
The breakdown
To calculate the data used in the report, Rightmove measured the asking price of about 90 percent of the market between March 7th and April 10th 2010, some 129,898 properties put on sale by estate agents during this time.
Among the nice of ten regions tracked by Rightmove showing increases, East Anglia showed the greatest gains at 4.9 percent on the month. London prices rose in every district for the first time in two years compared to a year earlier.
Mortgage lending rose to a total of £11.5 billion in March, an increase of 24 percent from February, according to a statement on the Council of Mortgage Lenders website. A separate full report is available on the CML website. , showing exactly how lending for house purchases strengthened in March.
“With the gradually improving economic backdrop and interest rates still low, we continue to expect a gentle improvement in market conditions later in the year,” Paul Samter, an economist at the CML, said in the statement. “The longer-term problems facing the market remain and will limit the speed of recovery in the housing market and wider economy.”
Economic recovery
Doubt about the outcome of the upcoming election, an increase in transaction tax, and the winter weather have undermined the housing market rebound this year, according to recent reports, however despite this, house prices continue to rise after falling by as much as a fifth from the pinnacle in 2007.
On April 9th, Savills Plc stated that values may weaken if the vote replicates the latest opinion polls, and a clear winner is not produced, resulting in a hung parliament. The split between the three major political parties is minimal, according to a poll published on 16th April by ComRes Ltd. The Conservatives receiving 35 percent support, the Labour Party receiving 28 percent, and the Liberal Democrats receiving 24 percent.
“As far as the housing market is concerned, any election result is better than no result,” Shipside of Rightmove said. “In the event of a hung parliament, the market is likely to go into suspended animation until greater certainty emerges.”
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