House prices in London have fallen for the first time in a year, Hometrack reported this morning.
The property data firm never quotes actual house prices, but says that across Greater London, prices fell by 0.2% in November compared with October, and in central London, fell by 1.2%.
The finding contradicts Knight Frank, which says that house prices in central London rose by 0.4% in November and by 9.4% over the year. But the firm has serious concerns over tax changes, and their implications, to be announced next week. See today’s blog.
Hometrack also says that house price falls were registered across all regions last month, apart from East Anglia where they remained unchanged.
Overall, it says, house prices fell by just 0.1%, while the number of new applicants fell by 0.8% and sales agreed were also down.
Richard Donnell, Hometrack’s director of research, said: “November’s house price survey of 1,500 agents and surveyors across the country shows a continued slowing of the housing market as the seasonal slowdown approaches.”
He added: “There is evidence that the performance of housing markets in the north and south of the country is starting to converge. The gap between asking and achieved prices is closing in northern regions. The slowdown in demand seen over the last five months has also been less pronounced. Demand has fallen by 4% in the north compared to 12% in the south.”
However, see the next story for what one property group is saying about London. Also see Knight Frank’s blog.
Comments
@Anonymous Coward - the hounds have been released!
Seriously though, all the questions hometrack ask agents are present in this report.
It's just opinion and most agents will tell them anything to get them off the phone.
IF they use proper survey data then fair play, but I would be highly sceptical of that.
Smithers! Release the hounds!
Actually, I have found Hometrack to be right on the money.
They use data from surveys, mortgages approved, Land Registry and estate agents.
It is VERY rare for their automated values to be wrong by more than any of the other methods out there and the data they provide to their members is excellent.
Saved me much wasted sales spiel when I can see that a vendor remortgages every 2 years and just gets agents in to polish their egos for them.
Funny, my monthly "Fill This In" reminder has just dropped in to my Inbox - talk about coincidence...
That smug London bubble had to pop some time and here it goes - so now welcome to our world ! It will do them all good to experience some of the challenges that the rest of the industry have had to overcome in recent years. Thing is I dont think that they'll cope with a tough market half as well as the rest of us - been too easy for too long. Me thinks it'll get bloody !
But Hometracks figures are based on agents conversation.
Not fact.
So how seriously can you really take their research?