Brickonomics

New Year stamp duty switchback will have little impact, says RICS

For those interested in what will happen when the stamp duty holiday comes to an end on December 31, the surveyors' body RICS has done a little bit of research among its members. Basically, the results seem to suggest that...

Posted by Brian on November 16, 2009 11:34 AM

The stagnant housing market: More a problem of first-time movers than first-time buyers

First-time buyers are increasingly becoming trapped in their first-time homes and unable to move on to homes that better suit their needs. That at least is the implication of some figures that caught my eye recently when I was looking...

Posted by Brian on November 10, 2009 8:41 PM

Summer sale has started in the housing market, says Rightmove

Today's Rightmove figures showing a drop of 2.2% in the price sellers are asking for their homes provides a reminder of the need to remain cautious about the direction of the housing market. The numbers are obviously being spun to...

Posted by Brian on August 17, 2009 8:33 AM

RICS: Housing market remains fragile, despite recent improvement

The message from the latest update on the housing market from the surveyors' body RICS is that while the market may have found a clearing it is not out of the woods yet. There has been a torrent of better...

Posted by Brian on August 6, 2009 9:06 AM

Housing market medicine working, says CML

The latest forecast from the Council of Mortgage Lenders paints a more positive outlook for the housing market than it did when it last forecast in December. It now thinks repossessions this year will hit 65,000, 10,000 fewer than previously...

Posted by Brian on June 22, 2009 1:49 PM

Homes sales continued to perk up in April, but it's too early to call it a recovery

The official figures for property transactions will make comforting reading in April for those selling homes. They seem consistent with the prevailing view that the housing market, in terms of sales and not prices, is showing some signs of bouncing...

Posted by Brian on May 22, 2009 9:47 AM

Home sales perk up in March

Another little ray of good news for estate agents and house builders came from the latest figures from HM Revenue & Customs for property transactions. They do provide a hint of a glimmer of hope that the housing market may...

Posted by Brian on April 22, 2009 4:58 PM

More buyers sniffing around for bargain buys in the housing market, says RICS

More green shoots appear to be sprouting in the housing market with the surveyors' body RICS finding an increase in interest among potential homebuyers over the past three months. Sensibly RICS economists are not getting over excited by this, after...

Posted by Brian on February 17, 2009 1:58 AM

Mortgage lending at 2001 level spells more bad news for home sales

Mortgage lending last year was down about 30% on the 2007 figures and in the final quarter was running at well below half the peak level, according to the latest figures from Council of Mortgage Lenders. CML expects the level...

Posted by Brian on January 21, 2009 11:50 AM

Plunging sales rates in 2008 and the threat to new housing development

The latest figures show that home sales in 2008 were down 43% compared with 2007, but scarier than that is the drop in level of property transaction over the second half of last year. This poses a real threat to...

Posted by Brian on January 21, 2009 9:56 AM

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

If 2008 was bad for the housing market, 2009 looks much worse

There are plenty of scary figures in the latest forecast from the Council of Mortgage Lenders not least the expectation that half a million homeowners will fall into arrears. The expectation that 75,000 homes will be repossessed by mortgage lenders...

Posted by Brian on December 18, 2008 5:52 PM

No Christmas present for estate agents or the economy in RICS figures

Two bits of good news for house sellers and builders in the latest housing market survey by the surveyors' body RICS. The graph showing the proportion of surveyors reporting prices falls appears to have bottomed out. And the graph showing...

Posted by Brian on December 9, 2008 9:44 AM

Stamp duty down £500 million a month

The latest figures for tax receipts suggest that the Government is down about £500 million a month in stamp duty revenue. Taking the three months to October the revenue trawled in £2,162 million in stamp duty. This compares with £3,926...

Posted by Brian on November 21, 2008 2:54 PM

Is the frozen housing market beginning to thaw?

Looking at the most recently released housing market data for October it is tempting to interpret it as showing signs of a thaw in a market that has almost frozen solid. On the month transactions rose according to the revenue...

Posted by Brian on November 21, 2008 12:31 PM

Asking prices crumble as hope of housing market recovery fades

For those who may have held lingering hopes of a lift in the housing market after the various interventions by the Government and the Bank of England of late will be disappointed by the message coming from the latest Rightmove...

Posted by Brian on November 17, 2008 10:46 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

New depths reached in housing market sales

The latest statistics from HM Revenue & Customs show that new record lows have been plumbed by sales in the UK housing market. On a seasonally adjusted basis, sales in September dropped to just 38% of the peak level reached...

Posted by Brian on October 21, 2008 10:40 AM

Housing market grinding to a standstill, says Hometrack

There is further evidence that the housing market is grinding to a standstill in the latest monthly figures provided by Hometrack. Hometrack figures put the annual drop in average prices at about 6.2%. This is a more modest drop than...

Posted by Brian on September 26, 2008 10:46 AM

Treasury faces £4.5 billion hole as house sales and stamp duty receipts slump

The steady decline in the UK housing market has been underlined by the latest numbers to come out of HM Revenue & Customs. They show sales of homes dropping to 72,000 in August, compared with 164,000 last August The figures...

Posted by Brian on September 24, 2008 1:30 PM