House prices 'might not recover for another 10 years'

Tim M: Thanks for joining the debate (although I am certain that PM will call it a 'fracas'...).

MY point is that all this individual can do is bash the Estate Agent. Not bad, for one whose website USP claim is "Sell or let your house direct. This site allows you to move house without having to use estate agency.", yet their search engine produces hundreds of Agents' listings! Seems to me that Agents are keeping PropertyMatch in business - so why bite the hand that feeds?

As I have said more than once before, Agents who 'overvalue' simply to gain the instruction are a blight on the profession and should play by the rules or get out of the game.

Agents are under obligation to act in their clients' best interests. If that is to ask a hopeful price in order to then negotiate a lower, acceptable figure to sell at, then that is acting accordingly. If the vendors' express wishes are to sell in the shortest timeframe possible, at the risk of potentially getting less than this 'market value' that PM keeps on about (which is the price that a willing buyer will offer ane a willing seller will take...), then, again, the Agent is acting accordingly. In EITHER instance, the Agent is duty bound to advise the client of the possible negative financial repercussions.

But look to the mid-ground. A sensible vendor, who wants a sale at a reasonable price in a reasonable timescale. What does the Agent tell him/her? The press is full of antihype - prices are going down; will go down; will take 10 years or more to recover. Buyers, therefore, will naturally consider that in order to "future-proof" their purchase, they need to get the price down. So you have a problem. How much over "market value" do you pitch the asking price in order to negotiate that figure?

THAT, my friend, is why you will NEVER get what PropertyMatch advocates - some kind of market appraisal 'red book'. It would need updating hourly - if not more frequently...

• 15 July 2010 12:55 PM

PeeBee... I don't think that PropertyMatch is advocating that agents should value low in order to get easier to sell instructions. Rather that some unscrupulous agents, in order to get an instruction at any cost, are misleading vendors by giving unrealistically high valuations. The key word being "unrealistically" ie no chance of achieving.

These valuations then have a knock on effect to the next layer of sellers entering the market. Thus creating more and more sellers with fairy tale ideas of what their property is worth eg what someone will (and can) pay for it now in this market.

• 15 July 2010 11:39 AM

don't you think it might actually have something to do with us being bombarded with too much debt/credit during the good years and we are now paying the price for banks/individuals/governments greed and short termism, this is the general view held by economists.

• 15 July 2010 11:09 AM

PropertyMatch: Turn over the record - it is becoming monotonous! How long into the next property boom will it be before you smell the coffee. You, I, or no-one living (or even Paul the Psychic Octopus for that matter...) can predict the market, as it is governed by the worlds' most unpredictable variables - people. Don't think you can change the world by your one-man crusade against Estate Agents. In the main, they do the job efficiently, professionally and, most importantly, in their clients' best interests. NOT EVERYONE wants to give their property away - quicker you learn that there are far more non-distressed sales taking place every year than distressed, the better for you.

• 15 July 2010 11:08 AM

I agree with PwC but I think RICS is understating the problem.
We have seen house prices seesaw over the past couple of years, yet again, causing more grief in the housing market.  As a result no-one really wants to move house unless they are absolutely desperate.

In my opinion estate agents have caused this problem by being incompetent at valuing houses.

When challenged they keep saying its their job to get 'The Best' price, as enshrined within the Estate Agents Act 1979 and they think this means hanging out for the maximum amount of money they can possibly get - irrespective of how long it may actually take!

What they don't seem to realise is this term 'Best' price actually means getting the market value.

The Government should look into the whole house price debacle, and make agents more financially responsible, if they get clients' house prices patently wrong by continually over-egging them.

• 15 July 2010 09:12 AM

RICS.... spare us the negative comment. "You say it best when you say nothing at all".....are they for us or against us?

• 14 July 2010 12:46 PM

That means a 30% chance that levels will be above those of 2007.
It would seem that the 'silly season' has arrived a little early at PWC! They know no more than specialist property people and probably less.
I would be interested to know their forcast of ten years ago - in 2000?
(Events, dear people, events.....)

• 14 July 2010 11:40 AM

Good old PWC - nice to see them sticking their corporate noses where they aren't wanted! Uninformed guesses based on... well - probably the uninformed guesses of the RICS and others... ;0)

• 14 July 2010 10:56 AM

Why don't accountants stick to their day jobs - what a ridiculous pronouncement for PwC to endorse and give credence to. A macro economist is about as relevant in this situation as 'Mystic Meg'.
Whatever happens to house prices, you can bet their professional charge out rates will continue to climb into the stratosphere.

• 14 July 2010 08:37 AM