Land Registry - Property prices DOWN!!!

BMWobbleU

It's happening, East Midlands down 3.3%

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7214777.stm

http://www.landreg.gov.uk/about_us/pressoffice/notices/default.asp?article_id=17333

budget_counsellor_shaz

The prices may just level off........

The south east is down 1.3% for the month but still up 7.2% over the year.

It would be good for us if they came down a bit more in the south east.

Time will tell.

chrisbee_2

housing market does slow down this time of year ! everyones recovering from xmas and newyear;)

boinging_2

Just out of interest Chrisbee, what will it take for you to believe that property prices are actually falling?

I'm sensing that a lot of people are still believing everything is rosey in the garden of HPI.

Bf109

boinging wrote: »

I'm sensing that a lot of people are still believing everything is rosey in the garden of HPI.

Of course they are! Dont you know that house prices only ever go up? I mean sheesh! havent you ever watched location location?

Paul_N_4

chrisbee wrote: »

housing market does slow down this time of year ! everyones recovering from xmas and newyear;)

The only other time the land registry registered a negative figure for HPI was in the summer of 2005.

firsttimetom

And dont forget that the Land registry figures tend to 'Lag' as the wait for data to come in.I haven't read the report, but I'm guessing these figures are from October/November ish?

And don't forget those new builds that sold for full asking price with a 15% deposit given to you by the developer and free carpets and free furniture and an Army of swedish twenty something leggy blondes to do the housework and entertain you will have been reported to the land registry as being sold at full price (practically FRAUD) rather than the actual price you end up paying.

We'll see Stagnation of prices for a long time now at 'best' (worst imo), but in reality we are likely to see some nice big drops.

SquatNow

Figures will be mostly from sales agreed in september/october at the latest.

You wont see figures for sales agreed in December until March.

Not that any sales that were agreed in December will complete.

Notice all those "SOLD" signs...? Well they arn't a sign of a boyant market. Once the sale completes, the sign comes down. SOLD signs don't mean more houses are selling, it means the opposite... no-one is completing... all the chains are stuck. Eventually chains start to collapse and people are forced to re-market the property, with people who NEED to sell being forced to drop the prices significantly.

The most noticable problem with this comes from one simple fact: For each person selling but not buying, (STR, BTL cashing out, OAP retiring abroad, inherited place being sold, ex-pat leaving etc) there needs to be someone at the other end of the chain buying but not selling... either BTL or FTB.

For the last 2 years, there have been no/few FTB, just BTL. Now the BTLers are holding off or selling up, all the chains will eventually collapse. It's basic mathematics. BTLers say that if prices start to drop, they will sell and take the profit, but no-one ever works out who they will sell TO.

Also note that the figures are highly skewed... the a$$ has dropped out of the bottom half of the market, so the high (as a percentage of overall sales) volumes of expensive "top-end" houses are skewing the figure upwards dramatically.

Put simply, if only 2 houses sell, one for £2m and one for £200k, the average house price is £1.1m... wahoo, house prices have gone up!

Bf109

SquatNow wrote: »

Figures will be mostly from sales agreed in september/october at the latest.

You wont see figures for sales agreed in December until March.

Not that any sales that were agreed in December will complete.

Notice all those "SOLD" signs...? Well they arn't a sign of a boyant market. Once the sale completes, the sign comes down. SOLD signs don't mean more houses are selling, it means the opposite... no-one is completing... all the chains are stuck. Eventually chains start to collapse and people are forced to re-market the property, with people who NEED to sell being forced to drop the prices significantly.

The most noticable problem with this comes from one simple fact: For each person selling but not buying, (STR, BTL cashing out, OAP retiring abroad, inherited place being sold, ex-pat leaving etc) there needs to be someone at the other end of the chain buying but not selling... either BTL or FTB.

For the last 2 years, there have been no/few FTB, just BTL. Now the BTLers are holding off or selling up, all the chains will eventually collapse. It's basic mathematics. BTLers say that if prices start to drop, they will sell and take the profit, but no-one ever works out who they will sell TO.

Also note that the figures are highly skewed... the a$$ has dropped out of the bottom half of the market, so the high (as a percentage of overall sales) volumes of expensive "top-end" houses are skewing the figure upwards dramatically.

Put simply, if only 2 houses sell, one for £2m and one for £200k, the average house price is £1.1m... wahoo, house prices have gone up!

You are being silly. Trinni and Sussanah told me otherwise!

Generali

These are the LR figures for November completions so, whilst November is a quiet month, it should be unaffected by Christmas.

For stats fans amongst us (eg Squat Now) the statisticians that put these indices together are aware of the basic mathematical pitfalls of constructing an index from raw data such as the one that SN demonstrates and so correct for them. As you're dealing with many properties you shouldn't be in a position of trying to compare mansions with studio flats!

FWIW, I reckon we should see year-on-year falls in prices by about May/June this year. It's just a guess and feel free to call me a fool in the summer if BoE rate cuts have the housing market booming again.

My guess is that there are going to be some very worried looking EAs by Easter. Shadenfraude rocks!

SquatNow

May/June sounds about right for the Land Registry figures.

I'm predicting a mass chain collapse in March... in a 4 week period virtually every Chain will officially collapse, and there will be a mad rush to drop prices in an attempt to get a sale. The market relies on FTB. The are no FTB.

Game over man, GAME OVER!