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Real Estate News Releases
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(EMAILWIRE.COM, May 22, 2009 ) UK - In a ray of hope for the UK property market, new research has found that property asking prices have increased for the four month in a row, climbing by 2.4 per cent, with the average property in England and Wales now being placed onto the market for £227,441...
The average asking price for properties in the UK has risen by £5,000 in the four weeks to May 9th this year, according to new research carried out by property site Rightmove.
It was the largest increase recorded during May since 2003, when house prices were rocketing by 15 per cent a year.
There are other reasons to be optimistic too – whilst the Council of Mortgage Lenders reported a 29 per cent jump in mortgage lending in March, The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said enquiries from potential buyers rose at their fastest pace in almost a decade in April.
The average agent agreed ten sales during April, up from eight in March and a low of just five last August, according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA).
The level of transactions has been steadily increasing since the beginning of the year, as potential buyers flood back to the market, lured by historically low interest rates and recent house price falls.
This has led many industry experts to suggest that the UK property market is bottoming out.
Peter Bolton King, Chief Executive of the NAEA, said the “consistent positive indicators were now holding firm or improving since the beginning of the year.
“Six months ago people were talking about how British people’s attitude to owning property had changed in the recession.
“The NAEA always said that this was nonsense, and that demand for property remained strong, but confidence in the market had gone. These figures show that this confidence is returning,” added Mr Bolton King.
But, before we all start getting too excited – there are still many hurdles to overcome before we start witnessing a real recovery. Whilst asking prices did rise overall, more than 59,000 sellers have also cut their asking price by more than two per cent in the past four weeks.
The rise in asking prices could be attributed to the fact that sellers are desperate not to lose any more money on the sale of their home and are pricing higher than before in an attempt to recoup the money.
Another element that is still holding back the market is the low number of properties coming onto the market – 61,000 homes were put on the market in April, compared to a whopping 135,000 over the same period last year.
Miles Shipside, Commercial Director of Rightmove, said, “The long-term worry is that the supply side of the housing market is now compromised for several years to come.
“Developers have shed much of their workforce so could struggle to increase capacity, and we are now seeing the lowest number of new sellers of second-hand homes for the month of May since 2003,” he added.
For more information on UK properties and the property market in general, please visit http://www.themovechannel.co.uk/
-ENDS-
Notes to editors:
TheMoveChannel.com is a property website that was founded in 1999 as an online resource for buying, selling and learning about property. It now receives as many as 300,000 visits per month and advertises over 50,000 properties in nearly 90 countries, which are listed by over 500 partner organisations.
For further information, please contact:
Dan Johnson
Managing Director
www.themovechannel.co.uk
0207 952 7650
TheMoveChannel.com
Dan Johnson
020 7952 7650
dj@themovechannel.com 
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