Brickonomics

"House price falls are over" say futures traders

House price falls are over. That is the declaration made over the past two months by the futures market after two years of grim expectations. As recently as last December you could forward buy a notional average house three years...

Posted by Brian on September 14, 2009 8:53 AM

Halifax figures dampen hopes of spring bounce in house prices

The Nationwide figures published yesterday provided some cheer for those selling homes with the announcement of a 0.9% rise in its house price index for March. That hope has been rather squashed with the Halifax today releasing figures suggesting the...

Posted by Brian on April 3, 2009 2:27 PM

House price collapse continues says Halifax

The Halifax index of house prices returned to a downward path in February after surprising many when it showed house prices rising in January. The February figure suggests that on a seasonally adjusted basis 2.3% was wiped off the value...

Posted by Brian on March 5, 2009 9:41 AM

£1 trillion wiped off the value of UK homes

Let's not get too worked up about the £40 billion loss by RBS - those foolish bankers that went into a bidding war to buy ABN Amro at peak. If the Nationwide figures are any reflection of the true value...

Posted by Brian on February 26, 2009 9:25 AM

Economists mark 2009 for the biggest fall in house prices

If you bought a house in 2003 or afterwards there is a fair change that by 2013 it will be worth just the same or less than as you paid for it. That is the grimmest view taken by the...

Posted by Brian on February 2, 2009 8:48 AM

Is the worst of the house price crash yet to come?

New Year, new figures from Nationwide showing a new fall in house prices. No surprise there then. But the next few months may prove critical to the final shape of our current house price crash. Will we see a more...

Posted by Brian on January 29, 2009 2:06 PM

Homes in the US sold for $1,000, will we see like here?

An article on CNN money caught my eye. It seems that homes in areas of the US hardest hit by foreclosures (repossession) are being dumped at throw away prices. At these prices you could practically buy up a neighbourhood for...

Posted by Brian on January 8, 2009 2:30 PM

Hard cash or car crash - what's driving visitors to Rightmove?

A press release from the property website Rightmove that dropped into my inbox this morning caught my eye. Of course it was promoting its wares - that's fair enough. But what I found interesting was the interpretation Rightmove has put...

Posted by Brian on January 8, 2009 10:13 AM

House price falls in 2008 more than double those of the 1990s

2008 will go into the record books as the year house prices fell at their fastest rate, with prices dropping over the year at more that double the pace of the previous record fall in 1992. The Nationwide data out...

Posted by Brian on January 6, 2009 10:43 AM

Half price houses by 2011, says the futures market

The futures market has marked house prices down further following the release of the latest Halifax figures and now predicts a fall of 46% in cash terms from peak to a trough in 2011. According to the Tradition Future HPI...

Posted by Brian on December 5, 2008 8:42 PM

Shock drop in Halifax house prices index spells more gloom

The Halifax has just recorded its second biggest house price fall in its 25 year history. The average price of a British home fell 2.6% in November according to the mortgage lender's figures. It means house prices have fallen on...

Posted by Brian on December 4, 2008 9:53 AM

All house price indexes are flawed, but that makes them more useful

There has been a huge fuss over the Land Registry house price index with a lot of people seemingly getting hot under and over the collar. But why? What's the fuss? Is the Land Registry really behaving "criminally"....

Posted by Brian on December 1, 2008 11:46 AM

Prepare for a bleak winter on house prices

On the face of it the steady easing over the past three months in the monthly rate of decline in house prices measured by Nationwide is encouraging to those who want to see the market stabilise. For the policy makers...

Posted by Brian on November 27, 2008 11:51 AM

House sales plunge further but surveyors see brighter future

The RICS has put an extremely upbeat spin on its latest monthly housing market survey despite the continued collapse in sales. The survey highlights the clear 20% majority of optimists over pessimists among the surveyors quizzed in October about future...

Posted by Brian on November 11, 2008 8:17 AM

Fancy a 40% discount on a house? Then just wait, says the futures market

The futures market has downgraded it expectations for house prices which now points to a fall in cash terms of more than 40% from the peak in August last year to the bottom of the market in 2011. According to...

Posted by Brian on November 7, 2008 4:48 PM

House prices 16% down and falling faster

House prices fell 2.2% in October to the level they first reached more than three years ago, according to the latest Halifax figures. But how far can they fall?...

Posted by Brian on November 6, 2008 9:33 AM

US are repossessing more homes per head than the UK is building

Now here is a thought. Over the past months, the rate of foreclosures (repossession) per head of population in the US has been running ahead of the rate of new homes built per head of population in the UK. I...

Posted by Brian on October 23, 2008 10:34 AM

Could anyone have seen this coming? Well, yes actually

Normality is finally being rewritten - the world is waking up to the fact that the past decade or so was extraordinary and bred extraordinary folly. Accompanying this awakening I hear the phrase "no one could have seen this coming"...

Posted by Brian on October 13, 2008 12:29 PM

Future market expects a near 40% fall in house prices

The futures market has unsurprisingly taken an even darker view of house prices over the past month as the Tradition Future HPI latest figures show. The market now puts the peak to trough fall in the average house price at...

Posted by Brian on October 13, 2008 11:09 AM

Time to price in the cost of losing skills in a housing crash

Until the realisation of the enormity of the task was grasped those at home and those on the way to the front comforted themselves with the line: "It'll be all over by Christmas." That was WW1. How much of this...

Posted by Brian on September 9, 2008 12:44 PM