Upmarket estate agent says prices will start to bottom out in 2024 as interest rates fall and will return to growth in 2025
Britain’s housing market is past “peak pain” and prices look likely to bottom out by next summer, according to the estate agency Savills.
The average UK house price is projected to fall by 3% in 2024, after a 4% drop this year, the upmarket estate agent and property advisory firm said in its five-year outlook.
Continue reading...Britain’s biggest mortgage lender forecasts 5% drop over this year and another 2.4% decline in 2024
UK house prices will continue to slide this year and in 2024 and will not start to recover until 2025, Lloyds Banking Group has forecast.
The lender, which owns Halifax and is Britain’s largest mortgage provider, said that by the end of 2023 UK house prices would have fallen 5% over the course of the year and were likely to decrease by another 2.4% in 2024.
Continue reading...High mortgage costs result in sixth straight month of sellers being forced to reduce prices, says Halifax
UK house prices fell at the fastest annual rate in 14 years in September, as high mortgage costs fuelled a sixth consecutive monthly drop in a “buyer’s market”, according to Halifax.
Halifax, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, said prices fell by 4.7% in September, the biggest year-on-year decrease since 2009.
Continue reading...Average rental property receives three times more enquiries from prospective tenants than in 2019
Private home rents in Great Britain have increased to their highest point on record after shortages in supply and mortgage rate rises combined to push the cost up by 10% over the past 12 months.
The average rent for new properties being put on the market now stands at a record £1,278 per calendar month outside London in the July to September period, according to Rightmove.
Continue reading...Number of house sales also fell in August compared with a year earlier, says HMRC
UK mortgage approvals fell in August to their lowest level in six months, as high interest rates cooled the housing market.
The Bank of England said net mortgage approvals for house purchases fell from 49,500 in July to 45,400 in August and were down by a third from the same month last year.
Continue reading...Lender says homes needing renovation are most in demand as people seek cheaper properties
The number of first-time buyers in the UK has fallen by more than a fifth, while homes in need of renovation are most in demand as buyers look for cheaper properties, in the latest evidence that people are struggling with higher mortgage costs.
There were 22% fewer first-time buyers between January and August compared with the same period last year, according to the mortgage lender Halifax. They still accounted for more than half (53%) of all home loans agreed in the first eight months of this year, similar to a year earlier (52%).
Continue reading...More than 36% of properties have had asking price cut at least once — the highest figure since 2011
UK house sellers are cutting their asking prices at the fastest rate in more than a decade, after high interest rates dampened demand for property this summer.
The proportion of homes on the market which have had at least one price reduction is at its highest level since January 2011, the property website Rightmove has reported.
Continue reading...Jump in borrowers unable to make payments with landlords particularly hit and ‘worse to come’
Mortgage arrears jumped by 13% in the second quarter of the year to the highest level since 2016, according to Bank of England figures that underscore the stress in the UK mortgage market.
Rising interest rates and unemployment over recent months have put pressure on household disposable incomes, forcing some families to cut or suspend their monthly mortgage payments.
Continue reading...New regulations expected to affect tens of thousands of illegal short-term listings
New rules in New York City on Airbnbs and short-term rentals go into effect on Tuesday, with regulations expected to affect tens of thousands of illegal short-term listings.
The latest legislation bulks up enforcement of existing rules on how short-term rentals are allowed to operate in New York City.
Continue reading...August 5.3% drop comes as sales completions down by about 40% in first half of year compared with 2021
UK house prices fell 5.3% in August compared with the same month last year, the fastest annual drop in 14 years, according to Nationwide Building Society.
The lender said the fall, which was the biggest since July 2009, when the global economy was in the depths of the financial crisis, was driven by soaring mortgage costs, which are putting off potential buyers. Average house prices are more than £14,500 lower than they were a year ago and mortgage approvals have plummeted by a fifth compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Continue reading...Interest rate rises on mortgages are weakening demand, property website says
The number of UK homes sold this year is expected to fall to the lowest level in more than a decade, as the soaring cost of mortgages puts off homebuyers.
House sales reaching completion are expected to fall 21% year-on-year to about 1m in 2023, the lowest level since 2012, according to a report from the property website Zoopla.
Continue reading...A profit warning from housebuilder Crest Nicholson has compounded fears of a housing market slowdown, as Rightmove data reveals a further drop in asking prices
AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said that while weak house price data (as was “hardly a surprise”, Crest Nicholson’s profit warning has “laid bare the the scale of the impact of a housing slowdown on the housebuilding sector.”
Sales of new homes have plunged alarmingly and, while not all developers in the space are created equal, the news, allied to Rightmove’s latest reading on the property market, has had a knock-on effect on share prices in the rest of the sector this morning.
The £7,000 drop in the average asking price observed by Rightmove in the last month, allied to a big drop in transaction volumes, is the kind of statistic to make estate agents distinctly uneasy.
Continue reading...House prices have increased more than 30% in five years in the state’s largest city, which has at least 50,000 people living outside
The median price for a home in Los Angeles, California’s largest city, will soon hit $1m, as skyrocketing housing costs fuel a humanitarian crisis that has left at least 50,000 people living in the streets.
In the past five years, the median listed home price in the Los Angeles area has increased more than 30%, according to estimates from the real estate company Zillow. As of late July, the median price for homes in the Los Angeles metropolitan area was estimated at $992,300.
Continue reading...Rightmove says average advertised rent in Great Britain is at all-time high of £1,231 a month outside the capital
Private rents in Great Britain have soared to fresh all-time highs and the average amount being asked for outside London is now a third higher than four years ago, figures from Rightmove show.
Despite rental growth running well ahead of inflation, the property website said homes were continuing to be let quickly, with many landlords “still being met with long queues of prospective tenants wanting to view and rent their property”.
Continue reading...Average price of property drops by 2.6% year on year in June as mortgage rates climb
UK house prices experienced their biggest annual fall in 12 years, according to Halifax, the latest sign that soaring interest rates on mortgages is bringing a halt to the housing boom.
The average price of a UK home tumbled 2.6% year on year last month, the largest annual decrease the lender has reported since June 2011, a significant acceleration from the 1.1% decline record in May.
Continue reading...Property developers struggle to rebuild confidence in housing market after three years of economic pain
Gold bars, new cars and mobile phones are among the incentives being offered to potential homebuyers by Chinese property developers as they grow increasingly desperate to boost sales.
Huafa Tianfu, a developer in the eastern city of Hangzhou, has been offering up to a kilo of gold bullion to tempt people into buying its flats.
Continue reading...Work on residential building sites slips in May to weakest level since 2009
Britain’s housebuilders are cutting back on the construction of new homes amid signs that potential buyers are being spooked by the prospect of increases in mortgage rates over the coming months.
The latest report on the construction sector found that work on residential building sites slipped in May to the weakest level since 2009, apart from when sites were locked down during the Covid pandemic.
Continue reading...Campaigners say second homes and holiday lets are taking homes away from residents in hotspots such as Devon and Cumbria
The supply of new homes in some tourist hotspots is being almost completely negated by the rise of second homes and holiday lets, analysis has revealed.
In the Copeland area of the Lake District, which includes the beauty spot of Scafell Pike, there were 426 new homes created in the last three years. Over the same period, 407 existing homes were converted to commercial holiday lets or second homes.
Continue reading...But property website warns that rebound in activity could be hit by rising mortgage rates
More prospective house sellers are returning to the UK’s property market, pushing agreed home sales to their highest point of the year in May, according to Zoopla, although it warned that the rebound in activity could be knocked by rising mortgage rates.
House prices have fallen by 1.3% nationally over the past six months, the property website found, but the speed of price falls has been decreasing as buyer confidence slowly improves.
Continue reading...Lenders forced to raise fixed-term deals after latest inflation figure pushed swap rates upwards
Households looking for a new mortgage deal have been warned to expect 5%-plus fixed-rate deals in the coming weeks, after Wednesday’s inflation figures sent the money markets back into turmoil.
Nick Mendes, the mortgage technical manager at the broker John Charcol, said on Thursday that he doubts that there will be any two-year fixed-rate mortgages and probably few five-year deals priced at less than 5% in the coming weeks, as lenders are forced to reprice their mortgages upwards.
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