MSE News: Nationwide: House prices fell in April

poppy10_2

richardw wrote: »

Would this be better over on http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=149 ?

The Debate board isn't accessible to non-logged in users, so guests who read the news story on the main site or in the newsletter would get an error message if they clicked the discussion link if it was went to the Debate board.

brit1234

Lets hope the average house price can fall below the magic £160k barrier in all of the three main indexes. Halifax is the first the other 2 are likely to in the next couple of months especially after the stamp duty changes and higher mortgage rates are shown in the figures.

Average House price
Halifax = £159,883
Nationwide = £163,327
Land Registry = £160,372

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

brit1234 wrote: »

Thats on top of the previous years falls Hamish.

Ah, I see.

Could you point that out here Brit? Because in reality there doesn't seem to be any "previous year falls" of any significance.

Also this is meant to be the spring bounce the time of year when they are strongest.

The year on year would be from last year's spring bounce too.

It's still only a fraction of a percent.:cool:

brit1234

Hamish getting worried? This was meant to be a good month for your house price rampers. The next few months get worse for you with the stamp duty changes, higher mortgage rates, re entering recession.

We have a huge housing bubble which is deflating. Many parts of the country are having big falls. The scale of these falls are being diguised by the mass central London foreign investment affecting national averages up. That influence is going to weaken with the stamp duty changes and international taxes on property investing.

RenovationMan

Falling house prices and a stuttering economy are great news for those of us who are using this sustained period of low interest rates to blitz our mortgages. The longer this downturn goes on the better my finances are. Once we see a recovery in the economy and house prices start to rise, we'll see interest rates go up.

Fingers crossed for downward economic and house price figures!!

brit1234

RenovationMan wrote: »

sustained period of low interest rates

Base rates are becoming increasingly separated from mortgage rates. Even if base rates remain low mortgage rates will rise as the cost of borrowing money increases especially with the Euro crisis.

RenovationMan

brit1234 wrote: »

Base rates are becoming increasingly separated from mortgage rates. Even if base rates remain low mortgage rates will rise as the cost of borrowing money increases especially with the Euro crisis.

Depends on whether you're content to sit on SVR, unable to make a choice on which way to go, or whether you decide to get on a mortgage product. BoE trackers don't move with SVR rates.

ess0two

brit1234 wrote: »

Did they fall in 2008? Yes they did.

Did the Bank of England slash interest rates to 0.5% to prop up house prices? Yes it did.

Mortgage rates are going up, pretty much all the stimulus keeping prices up is being removed or has been. The low interest rates didn't stop house prices from falling to affordable levels but just delayed it.

So the BOE reduced IR's just for homeowners?more the like the consequence of helping the economy.

franklee

RenovationMan wrote: »

Depends on whether you're content to sit on SVR, unable to make a choice on which way to go, or whether you decide to get on a mortgage product. BoE trackers don't move with SVR rates.

If you've got a long term tracker tracking base rate +/- a bit (which may be very low under 1%) then yep, you're on a great gravy train especially if you are using the breaks to pay down your debt. (Not to worry it's at the expense of the more prudent savers). However some trackers (and many fixed deals) revert to the lender's SVR after the initial (what 3-5 year) deal ends and these are creeping up. Depends on the details of the deal you got really. What rate are you tracking at and for how long?

RenovationMan

franklee wrote: »

If you've got a long term tracker tracking base rate +/- a bit (which may be very low under 1%) then yep, you're on a great gravy train especially if you are using the breaks to pay down your debt. (Not to worry it's at the expense of the more prudent savers). However some trackers (and many fixed deals) revert to the lender's SVR after the initial (what 3-5 year) deal ends and these are creeping up. Depends on the details of the deal you got really. What rate are you tracking at and for how long?

First Direct do a 2.19% term tracker which is available now. For those who don't want to depend on the largess of the BoE, you can get a First Direct 5 year fix at 3.69% or a 10 year fix at 4.19% from National Counties. I dare say better rates are available to those who are prepared to search or use a broker.

There is no need to sit on SVR unless they are still better than getting a mortgage deal. Many people are lethargic with their money, remaining with poor bank accounts they have had since they were kids, mortgages on poor rates, even down to sticking with the most expensive utility companies. Hence the raison d'etre for MSE and other sites.