House Prices

[LGBirmingham]

House prices still seem to be rising? Does anyone else think this?

Ive just looked back and realised you were the one who linked to the article.

You even state in your post that 1 in 3 were asked to reduce?

Did you not understand what you were writing?

Although, even in parts of Scotland, house prices have fallen far more (7.4%) according to this article:

https://espc.com/news/post/espc-house-price-report-october-2023

Agree that various statistical weightings appear to be rather suspect!

Yes, as many predicted when it turns it can turn very fast, and property is VERY illiquid, you can`t just cash out of the market like you can with most stock market investments.

That is on tiny volumes, most people can`t sell their house now unless they are cutting the price.

Always arguing against official data when it doesn’t suit your narrative @CrashyTime but happy to accept it at face value when it does 🤷🏼‍♀️

No, I am accepting the official data that you posted, but I am saying that it is based on tiny volumes meaning that the "average" price is not achievable for the majority of sellers trying to sell their home around the country (remember they are not part of the stats yet and sales are down 50%) PropertyLog and similar apps tell us that most people are discounting price now to get interest in their property.

But if the same amount of data showed prices falling you would happily accept it that’s my point.

Eventually that data will show prices falling, (Halifax posting 3.2% "yearly falls" today for example) it is neither here nor there, what I am saying is that pretending that economic reality doesnt exist because of statistical noise isnt sensible, the real story is that rates have gone from zero to pushing 6%, that can`t happen without an adjustment in the market, to post things that try to say otherwise is just misleading people IMO.

I don’t feel that I’m out of touch with economic reality though Crashy in fact I believe I have a better grasp of economic reality than you. I think your views are rather extreme whereas mine are more moderate in that I’m not denying house prices are falling in most areas it’s just that I don’t foresee a big crash.

We can agree on an “adjustment in the market” but unlike you I don’t see the adjustment as a massive one & expect house prices to recover in time.

In my view there will be price adjustments but no significant 'crash'.

It's been at least 14 months of catchy headlines predicting huge crashes since the covid boom but the numbers in reality aren't significant.

Confidence is returning to the market, interest rates are stable for now.

Whatever changes are happening in the market, living in a house you've bought with a mortgage is much more secure than renting.

Sales are not down 50%. They are down about 100k on the last comparable, non boom year, which was something like 800-900k. Where are you getting 50% from?

I think that Crashy is looking at mortgage approvals, but of course many sales don't involve mortgages (30%?).

Hmm, I forget, I think it might be higher, closer to 40%.

Anyway, last week’s sales stats attached, @CrashyTime.

@XVGN Cash buyers currently at over 40% of the market, in a usual environment it's nearer 35%.

Pre-pandemic norm for annual UK transactions was 1.2 million. We're on track for 950k-1million transactions this year.

@witheringrowan you are wrong to the tune of 400k a year. Did you see the chart I posted above? That data comes from TwentyEA.

I don't think 250-350k more sales between now and the end of December is possible.

'Confidence is returning to the market, interest rates are stable for now.'

Where do you get the impression that confidence is returning to the market from?
The market has fallen more rapidly in the past couple of months if anything and it always tends to fall at this time of the year in any case. I can only see things getting worse, in terms of confidence and house prices, as the economy shrinks and unemployment rises. Sorry.

@KievLoverTwo Nah, this is my job, I know what I'm talking about.

TwentyEA/CI rely on scraping property portals for their sales data - it always undercounts, not everything is marked in a way they can pick up, they miss anything not on Rightmove or Zoopla, or anything sold off market, which is a significant part of the market at the top end. Land Registry recorded transactions to the end of August are 680k, so you need about 80k transactions per month across the last 4 months of the year to get to 1million - seems perfectly reasonable, especially considering that mortgage rates have been dropping since mid-August compared to what was on offer in June & July, and there are still a lot of active cash buyers.

Just to give you an example of how patchy the TwentyEA data is - they have 970k sales for 2021. Land Registry, which is officially recorded government data, and has to be involved in every single sale, has 1.4 million transactions for that year.

You can see on the TwentyEA/CI slide that their recorded sales are currently at 89.7% of their 2017-19 levels. 89% of 1.2 million, which is the average number of annual sales in that period according to Land Registry is... 1.06 million.

Huh, good to know! Thanks for taking the time to explain it all.

So the market is actually doing far better than they are presenting. Which is a bit odd.

Is there a more accurate source I can follow? Because this show seems to be deeply flawed.

Oh, and thanks for not getting arsey. I can be a bit too blunt sometimes :-/

A friend of ours was telling us about a home owners meeting that took place (basically a get together with people in the street). They said they all agreed that if anyone was to sell their house they wouldn’t drop the price below market value so that it could have a knock on effect.

So, in terms of proportion, compared to pre pandemic figures, 2023 is likely to be around 20% lower? Similar percentage reduction to the Twenty EA figures.
That's a large reduction.

It makes logical sense that there are more cash buyers transacting at present compared to the norm. It does call into question the accuracy of the Nationwide/Halifax figures even more than usual as cash buyers pay less than mortgaged.

My ex inlaws house went on the market last weekend, 3 bed ex council townhouse, had adaptions done as they were both disabled in later years, upstairs & downstairs wetrooms, ramp & widened doors to get in. I was expecting it to go on for around £145-150k, it has gone on at £125k.

https://news.sky.com/story/good-news-for-homeowners-with-average-house-price-predicted-to-be-16345000-higher-by-2028-13003105

Please see link above; that’s pretty much as I called it. Few percentage wobble in prices this year and next followed by rises in 2025,26,27 and 28 showing prices higher in 2028 than today. Nobody will remember the wobble in prices over the longer term. Support should be given so nobody loses their home , things in housing market will improve. It’s a supply and demand issue.

https://propertyindustryeye.com/profits-plummet-by-72-as-savills-reveals-half-year-results/

Of course they are going to say that. Look at the state their business is in.