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Double whammy for Northern Ireland homeowners
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Beleaguered Northern Ireland homeowners have been hit by a double blow after figures revealed house prices plummeted by 16% and Nationwide said it would not not pass on further cuts in interest rates to tracker mortgage customers.
The latest gloomy news emerged after mortgage lender Halifax said house prices across the UK plunged by 16.2% in 2008 — the biggest annual fall ever recorded.
In a second blow to households, the Nationwide Building Society said yesterday it will not pass on any further cuts in UK interest rates to most of its tracker customers.
The decision will affect about a quarter of a million of Nationwide's 1.5 million mortgage customers.
Campbell Morris, from Morris Estate Agents Ltd in north Belfast, who is a member of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), said that the developments were a “reality check” for homeowners and estate agents.
“A lot of estate agents have gone out of business because they were conditioned to work in a market you didn’t have to be tenacious — the property sold itself.”
“The biggest impediment to an increase in transactions — which is what is required in Northern Ireland — is consistent pricing.
“There are still very erratic pricing for similar properties.
“It is first time buyers that need to underpin the stability of the market.
“That’s why we had such a fantastic spike upwards and a traumatic spike downwards because the increase in the market was very much investor driven.”
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what are the banks and building socities doing? they are so demanding with their charges on houses even when the debt as never been secured on property. this needs to be stopped, and our government are not being hard enough on banks.
Posted by Kitty | 04.01.09, 00:52 GMT
We get plenty of stats on UK house prices and none on local prices. I know which I would find more interesting.
Posted by Patrick | 03.01.09, 19:14 GMT
The investors have gone and Frank Knight, a UK estate agent, yesterday predicted further price falls of 32% in NI for 2009 against an average 10% drop for the rest of the UK. Estate agents and sellers here need to get real and price property to sell instead of hanging on to the bubble which is not simply deflating but has well and truly burst. Most people and banks, though few sellers and Estate Agents, have caught themselves on. Stop wasting everyones time - house prices should now reflect Rateable Value 2005 and will continue to slide from this level for some time yet. There also appears to be oversupply in the private market as greedy developers rushed in to cash in on the unsustainable price spike - how many flats were built and houses built in gardens? DSD can only buy so many Curzon developments. One last thing, mortgage affordability should be more important than mortage availability. The current average house price at 8 times average salary is nuts.
Posted by G C | 03.01.09, 14:32 GMT