Don’t believe this talk of a housing crash says lettingfocus.com
The media is still doing their best to talk up a recession and a fall in house prices.
However, out in the real world, the real market (outside the awful oversupplied and in places fraud ridden new build sector) is stubbornly staying relatively strong.
Indeed, the UK property market is gaining momentum according a preview of figures from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) monthly housing market survey. Buyers on books, housing stock and sales all increased in January in an upward trend.
They say that after a seasonally slow December, the market is beginning to pick up again, with the number of house buyers up 11% in January and first time buyers accounting for 14.5% of all sales, a rise of just over 3% for the same period last year. Well, of course the NAEA’s job is to talk up the market, naturally.
But even if you look behind the figures you still don’t see a big fall off in activity.
OK repossessions are up and filling the auction rooms, that is true – and yes the papers love to scream this from the rooftops. It sells papers after all.
But the fact is that repossessions are low by historic measures.
OK, they are almost three times up on 2004, buy hey interest rates were unusually low at that time, so that’s kind of what you would expect.
But according to the FT “the increase merely takes repossessions from an extremely low level to a pretty low level”
They highlight that as a proportion of outstanding mortgages, only 0.11 per cent (one in a thousdand) were repossessed in the second half of 2007 – exactly the same proportion as in the first half and actually four times lower than the peak of repossessions which occurred in the second half of 1991.
The FT goes on to say that analysis of the figures show that “at no point in the 1990s was the rate of repossession any lower than it is today.”
So, those are the real facts behind the tabloid headlines.
What’s my take on all this.
Well, I was hoping for a stalling hosuing market so that I could get some good property deals.
At the moment there is only a slight slowdown and vendors will listen to offers but so far the market is still staying relatively strong. That may change during the year.
Meanwhile to find out what’s really happening in the property market, do what I do, stick to the FT and avoid all the nonsense and hype in the other papers. And definitely avoid the Get Rich Quick in Property courses and companies.
If you need more advice on where to buy investment property ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from independent property investment experts www.lettingfocus.com
I’m the author of the landlords bible “Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling property title.
I’m an expert on property letting and a well known writer on buy to let and I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a landlord and tenant advice service - check out my columns for FinancialExpress.net and Archant’s “The Guide” magazine
I also work as a consultant helping banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services.
You can read more of my landlord blog and details of my networking, advice, property investors seminar programme at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London landlords networking meeting is on March 12th.
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we offer independent property investment mentoring because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
If a property investment is lousy we’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad and we won’t make silly promises that you’ll become a millionaire overnight.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2008. This blog is updated at least twice a week. Permission must be sought before using the material in the blog.
However, out in the real world, the real market (outside the awful oversupplied and in places fraud ridden new build sector) is stubbornly staying relatively strong.
Indeed, the UK property market is gaining momentum according a preview of figures from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) monthly housing market survey. Buyers on books, housing stock and sales all increased in January in an upward trend.
They say that after a seasonally slow December, the market is beginning to pick up again, with the number of house buyers up 11% in January and first time buyers accounting for 14.5% of all sales, a rise of just over 3% for the same period last year. Well, of course the NAEA’s job is to talk up the market, naturally.
But even if you look behind the figures you still don’t see a big fall off in activity.
OK repossessions are up and filling the auction rooms, that is true – and yes the papers love to scream this from the rooftops. It sells papers after all.
But the fact is that repossessions are low by historic measures.
OK, they are almost three times up on 2004, buy hey interest rates were unusually low at that time, so that’s kind of what you would expect.
But according to the FT “the increase merely takes repossessions from an extremely low level to a pretty low level”
They highlight that as a proportion of outstanding mortgages, only 0.11 per cent (one in a thousdand) were repossessed in the second half of 2007 – exactly the same proportion as in the first half and actually four times lower than the peak of repossessions which occurred in the second half of 1991.
The FT goes on to say that analysis of the figures show that “at no point in the 1990s was the rate of repossession any lower than it is today.”
So, those are the real facts behind the tabloid headlines.
What’s my take on all this.
Well, I was hoping for a stalling hosuing market so that I could get some good property deals.
At the moment there is only a slight slowdown and vendors will listen to offers but so far the market is still staying relatively strong. That may change during the year.
Meanwhile to find out what’s really happening in the property market, do what I do, stick to the FT and avoid all the nonsense and hype in the other papers. And definitely avoid the Get Rich Quick in Property courses and companies.
If you need more advice on where to buy investment property ask me. I’m David Lawrenson from independent property investment experts www.lettingfocus.com
I’m the author of the landlords bible “Successful Property Letting - How to Make Money in Buy to Let” the UK’s top selling property title.
I’m an expert on property letting and a well known writer on buy to let and I contribute to newspapers and a host of property websites, write a property investment blog and run a landlord and tenant advice service - check out my columns for FinancialExpress.net and Archant’s “The Guide” magazine
I also work as a consultant helping banks, building societies, housing associations and web portals with their buy to let and property products and services.
You can read more of my landlord blog and details of my networking, advice, property investors seminar programme at my website www.lettingfocus.com.
My next London landlords networking meeting is on March 12th.
What’s unique about lettingfocus.com is that we offer independent property investment mentoring because unlike most people in the buy to let and property “advice” business we are not linked to a property company, developer, agent or bridging loan financier and do not receive commissions from any of these sources.
If a property investment is lousy we’ll tell you straight and we will tell you all about buy to let and property investment - the good and the bad and we won’t make silly promises that you’ll become a millionaire overnight.
Copyright: David Lawrenson 2008. This blog is updated at least twice a week. Permission must be sought before using the material in the blog.
This entry was posted by lettingfocus, on
Friday, February 15, 2008.
