Housing market worst for 30 years

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) says that 95 per cent more surveyors reported a fall in house prices in April than a rise, the worst figure it has reported since it began publishing monthly property market surveys in January 1978.

In some areas of the country, including East Anglia, the North and North-west of England, not a single surveyor reported house price increases, with 100 per cent reporting declines during April. Even in Scotland, where the housing market has been more robust in recent months, Rics says more surveyors are now reporting house price falls than rises.

"Many would-be-buyers are either struggling to raise the necessary finance or are exercising caution in the light of current economic uncertainty," Rics warns. "With the official interest rate cuts not being fully passed on to the high street, lenders continue to pull back on the range of mortgage products and further scale down loan-to-value ratios, there is little expectation that demand will improve in the near term."

Rics also warns that Britain's property market may yet deteriorate even further, because a shortage of supply of homes coming up for sale is acting as a brake on price falls. If economic problems were to cause an increase in the number of homeowners forced into selling their homes, much more significant price falls would be likely.

Worryingly, there is some evidence that this trend has already begun. Stephen Thornton, a spokesman for Rics, said that there had been a sharp increase in the number of properties coming on to the books of surveyors in London last month. He warned: "When there is a big jump upwards in new instructions it can indicate forced sales – either repossessions or sales from those attempting to avoid the repossession process."

This may reflect the sharp rise in the number of homeowners facing the prospect of losing their homes that was reported by the Ministry of Justice last week. It said the number of repossession orders made in the English and Welsh courts during the first quarter of the year was 17 per cent higher than in the first three months of 2007.

The Ministry of Justice also said the number of repossession claims from lenders, the first stage in the legal process of confiscating the home of someone who falls behind on their mortgage payments, had risen by 16 per cent in the first quarter. It is at this stage that many borrowers would seek to sell their homes, in order to avoid the repossession process.

Nevertheless, estate agents insisted yesterday that Britain was not on the verge of a house price slump. "The house prices falls that are taking place are modest and the picture is still patchy, with some areas of the country finding it tougher than others," said Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents. "It is still important to remember that the underlying factors that support the property market remain – low unemployment, historically low interest rates and a pent-up demand for houses."

However, the figures from Rics show an increasingly gloomy picture across every important housing market indicator. The number of sales completed by surveyors over the three months to the end of April was the lowest since 1997. The number of unsold properties on their books is at its highest level since 1998, and the number of sales as a proportion of unsold properties is now at a 12-year low.

Moreover, Rics' figures are in line with the most recent warnings on house prices from Halifax Bank and Nationwide Building Society, the country's two biggest mortgage lenders. Both have said that annual house price growth went negative in April for the first time since the property market began correcting, taking the average home below its value 12 months ago. Halifax is now expecting prices to fall by an average of 10 per cent during the course of 2008 and 2009.

There are also increasing fears about the impact of housing market setbacks on the wider economy. "The real issue is the collapse in the number of housing transactions, which has very real implications, not just for the property industry but also the high street and the wider economy," added Ian Perry, a spokesman for Rics. "Sellers of white goods, for example, are likely to suffer if this low level of turnover persists for much longer."

The British Retail Consortium said yesterday that retail sales during April were at the lowest level for three years. However, despite calls for aggressive interest rate cuts from estate agents and other housing market professionals, the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee is finding it increasingly difficult to justify reductions in the cost of borrowing, in the face of rising inflation. Official statistics yesterday revealed that prices at the factory gate are now at record levels, with rampant cost increases in the energy, food and transport sectors now beginning to feed through.

Michael Saunders, an economist at Citigroup, said: "The housing market is already extremely weak, and house prices are likely to fall further in coming months. Consumer spending is starting to give way and also seems likely to slow sharply in coming months.

"The strength of cost pressures adds to the economy's downside, not least because it greatly reduces scope for the MPC to respond to the credit crunch with rapid easing [of interest rate policy]."