London prices drop by 2.6% in London - but BBC don't want to know

pricedout_1

House prices in England and Wales drop in Q4 - Land Registry UPDATE
LONDON (AFX) - House prices in England and Wales edged lower in the final three months of 2006 from the third quarter, figures from the Land Registry revealed.
The average house price dropped to 207,573 stg from 211,453 stg, a 1.8 pct drop.
In Greater London, prices fell to 321,971 stg from 330,838 stg, a 2.6 pct drop.

Instead of reporting the Land Registry figures for Q4 2006 above, the BBC are still banging on about the mickey mouse figures that the Halifax spew out. So the headline is "Prices rise 1.3% in January" rather than "London prices drop by 2.6%"

To what extent are the media controlled/manipulated/edited by their owners ? Are the BBC just Gordon Brown's puppets? Or do they just not want to report prices falls because most of the reporters/editors are property owners? Are they biased and reporting a biased view of property prices and if so should they be exposed? We could grass them up to the Mail or Telegraph

pricedout_1

Woh .... There is an article on the BBC website about the land registry figures and there is NO MENTION of either the drop in average price for England and Wales or the 2.6% drop in London !!!!!! !!!!!!!!! Read the article and ask yourself why there is no mention of the drops? Not only that but ...

"House price inflation picked up towards the end of 2006 in England and Wales, the latest report from the Land Registry says. " .... No - it didn't say that at all! What it said was that HPI turned negative towards the end of 2006!!!

"Despite three increases in interest rates since last August, there has so far been little evidence of a slowdown in property prices." So -1.8% for England and -2.6% for London in Q4 is not even a little bit of evidence?

Alan_M_2

You're taking London as an Isolated area, If you look at the country as a whole the BBC remarks are correct.

There's no point overanalysing quarterly figures to this extent, the errors that can occur whilst compiling these numbers will far outweigh 2.6% in either direction.

This is being done to death and even I'm getting fed up with it (and I'm a bear as far as the housing market goes).

As long as people have the ability to borrow money at ever increasing multiples at what are still very reasonable interest rates te march in prices will continue. Whether that's morally or ethically correct is another conversation.

I could easily remove a single area from the statistics like...oh I don't know - Norfolk and highlight how there's a 5% increase in Q4 therefore we must all invest every penny we have in property.

I believe ultimately there will be a correction, I'm yet to see any SOLID evidence of happening although there is some anecdotal available.

Biggles

I have no interest in this either way, but the Land Registry's website says. "HPI News: 2006 has concluded with a solid rise in house prices for England and Wales. The past year has seen greater house price appreciation than that witnessed throughout 2005." http://www.landreg.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/hpir0107.pdf

It says the last month's increase was 0.7%, with London experiencing the highest monthly change of 2.0%. Also that the average house price was £173,717. Not sure where the quoted £207,573 comes from, but it would appear to be not the LR.

sarkin

London may be an isolated area to you, but 10 million people live there which makes up 1/6 of the population. I had an enquiry for a remortgage in Ilford the other day. Client purchased house 2005 for 250,000 I checked the land registry figures for sold prices and a simmilar flat sold 6 months ago for £190,000, thats 20%. http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=IG6+3XQ:confused:

Doozergirl

sarkin wrote:

London may be an isolated area to you, but 10 million people live there which makes up 1/6 of the population. I had an enquiry for a remortgage in Ilford the other day. Client purchased house 2005 for 250,000 I checked the land registry figures for sold prices and a simmilar flat sold 6 months ago for £190,000, thats 20%. http://www.houseprices.co.uk/e.php?q=IG6+3XQ:confused:

That's new build flats for you.

Tiglet

Some quotes from the LR document above:

"2006 has concluded with a solid rise in house prices"

"London once again represents the main driving force behind the recent house price growth"

"The rate of annual increase in London's house prices has been greater than that of England and Wales since March 2006"

"London experienced the highest monthly change, with an increase of 2%"

Richard_Webster

People get far too excited about these general trend figures...

London is a big place and the trends will vary from area to area.

hearts

......and the rest of us outside there don't really give a shcit ;-)

pricedout_1

Biggles wrote:

I have no interest in this either way, but the Land Registry's website says. "HPI News: 2006 has concluded with a solid rise in house prices for England and Wales. The past year has seen greater house price appreciation than that witnessed throughout 2005." http://www.landreg.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/hpir0107.pdf

It says the last month's increase was 0.7%, with London experiencing the highest monthly change of 2.0%. Also that the average house price was £173,717. Not sure where the quoted £207,573 comes from, but it would appear to be not the LR.

The figures come from a report on the LR site .....

http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/libr...ppr_q4_2006.pdf

.... (but the average price figures on the report don't seem to tally with the average price figures if you go through the house price index report)

Anyway on the report above you need to go down to page 17 to get the Q3 average 211,453 and compare that with the Q4 average 207,573, a drop of 1.8%. Do the same for London and you have a drop of 2.6%....

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/070208/323/gyhrc.html

So are these not significant figures? We should just ignore them along with the media?

Alan_M_2

Are the figures seasonally adjusted or not?

I't not unusual to see a drop up to Christmas even in a rising market, people don't want to sell at Christmas.