30
Mar
House prices remain sluggish, Nationwide says
More evidence of a sluggish start to the year in the UK housing
market has been published by the Nationwide Building Society.
Prices across the UK rose by 0.7% in March, but the longer term
picture showed a slow down in house price inflation.
The average UK home cost £164,519, some £14,000 higher
than a year ago.
But the annual rate of increase of 9% was slower than the 9.2%
recorded in February.
The Nationwide said over the past few months the property market
had become more subdued.
In the three months to the end of March prices rose by 1.6%,
compared with a 1.8% increase in the previous three months.
"The last two months are consistent with a relatively flat
profile for house prices, and in line with the recent drops seen in
buyer enquiries and house sales," said Martin Gahbauer, the
Nationwide's chief economist.
The 0.7% month-on-month rise in March was a reverse of the
previous month's 0.8% fall, but mortgage activity remained low,
suggesting no great upward pressure on house prices.
"Preliminary figures show that the number of loans taken out for
house purchases failed to recover from January's large dip,
suggesting that weakness in house sales at the start of the year
may have been due to more than just the snowy weather," Mr Gahbauer
added.
Figures released earlier this month by the Land Registry, which
is considered the most comprehensive survey for England and Wales
but lags behind others, showed that prices fell by 0.3% in
February. They were 7% higher than a year ago, and the annual rate
had quickened from 5.2% the previous month.
Stamp duty
At the end of last year, sales were boosted by the 1 January
2010 reintroduction of 1% stamp duty on homes costing between
£125,000 and £175,000.
In an attempt to keep sales ticking over, last week's Budget
introduced a new policy.
The 1% stamp duty band - which cover homes worth between
£125,000 and £250,000 - will be abolished for two years,
but for first-time buyers only.
The Nationwide said it would save £1,368 for the average
first-time buyer, but Mr Gahbauer was unsure if it would made much
difference to the market as a whole.
"Over the course of the last [stamp duty] holiday, there was
indeed a modest increase in house purchase transactions, with most
of the pick-up seen during the second half of the exemption
period," he said.
"However, transactions remained well below normal levels
throughout and it is not clear how much of the pick-up was
attributable to other factors such as the record cut in interest
rates.
"In addition, there was no appreciable increase in transactions
at the lower end of the chain," he pointed out.
Sales
The number of homes sold in the UK rose in February. Figures
from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) have shown that the number of
completed sales rose by 14% from January, to 58,000 last month.
But this was still substantially fewer than the 103,000 sold in
December.
With figures from the Bank of England showing on Monday that the
number of new mortgages approved for home buyers fell slightly from
January to February, the property market seems likely to stay
subdued for at least the next few months.
"Although more supply has begun to come on to the market, it has
yet to reach the level where it is matching demand," said Simon
Rubinsohn, chief economist of the Royal Institution of Chartered
Surveyors (Rics).
"From a regional perspective, the Nationwide numbers predictably
show London and the South of England continuing to see the
strongest price performance."
source: www.bbc.co.uk/news Tuesday 30th
March 2010