House prices have made very little movement in May, increasing by just 0.1%, according to statistics published by the Halifax.
These numbers concur with statistics released by the Nationwide building society in the previous week. Nationwide claimed a little rise of 0.3%.
The small increase in May was preceded by a 1.4% decrease in April, the means that over the quarter property prices are down by 1.2%, while prices fell by -4.2% during the year, the sharpest year-on-year drop since October 2009.
Martin Ellis, housing economist for the Halifax, said: “House prices continue to drift modestly downwards as measured by the underlying trend. Low earnings growth, higher taxes and relatively high inflation are all putting pressure on household finances.
“Confidence is also weak as a result of uncertainty about the economic and employment outlook. These factors are probably constraining housing demand and applying some downward pressure on prices.
“Overall, we expect a moderate improvement in the economy during the remainder of 2011, which combined with continuing low interest rates is likely to support housing demand. This should prevent a further marked fall in prices and help to stabilise property values later in the year.”
Ellis claims that statistics announced by the Royal institute of chartered surveyors show there has been a slight movement in the balance between supply and demand and the amount of property sales increasing in comparison to the amount of unsold houses on agents’ books. But the amount of sales in the first quarter of the year is 5% lower than this time last year – 279,000 in comparison to 293,000, according to statistics from HMRC.
There is still much pessimism from economists in relation to the property market with most expecting property prices to fall during this year.
At quick house sale our opinion remains unchanged, we predict house prices will remain stagnant in the majority of places this year and we do not expect to see a recovery for 2-3 year. We are also still seeing discrepancies between the advertised prices of a property and the amount a surveyor will be prepared to value at.