Signs of House Prices Turning Creates Disagreement

geoffky · 13 April 2009 at 4:11PM

4 April 2009

This week saw a huge amount of publicity about the possibility of the housing market turning. Not necessarily going up again yet as shown in the first positive month for 17 months in the Nationwide data, but not necessarily going down 1.9% a month as shown in the next day's Halifax data. We mainly stick to our Assetz House Price Watch data for talking about the housing market as it averages out all of the main indices and gives a far more stable view of what is actually happening. Unfortunately press comment, until recently, has mostly picked up on just individual monthly pieces of data rather than the big picture, accurate longer term charts and moving averages.

However, this week saw a change and far more press comment is picking up on the big picture. Negative commentators are expressing opinions of doom and gloom still and positive commentators are indicating that the market is turning - what is interesting is both of these types of commentator are acknowledging that the data is looking increasingly positive whilst then reverting back to their personal opinion. It looks like pretty much everybody, therefore, has noticed the positive signs in softening house price falls, increasing sales, increasing numbers of mortgage offers, increasing enquiries and increased lending. All that remains is their personal opinions to match the facts.

http://investors.assetz.co.uk/blog/:rotfl::rotfl: from the idiot called stuart law