Higher sales prevent house price plummet
RISING sales are preventing house prices from sinking significantly further, the latest Hometrack survey reveals this morning.
A 20 per cent upturn in sales over the last two months has kept prices from dropping at a sharper rate, the group said, reporting only another slight (0.1 per cent) decline in prices for July.
“Prices are likely to fall further over the coming months,” warned Hometrack’s Richard Donnell, “yet with sales volumes holding up there is no impetus for any material change in prices.”
“London continues to provide a strong support to the national trends with prices up by 0.3 per cent over the month,” Donnell added.
Yet elsewhere in the south, prices have been hit harder, falling by 0.2 per cent in the rest of the south east, and by a whopping 0.6 per cent in the south west.
“Some prices fell from a high base in the face of slowing demand and above average growth in supply,” the report said. Throughout the country, however, supply and demand have begun to level out, “with an increasing number of sales being agreed between more realistic sellers and a growing pool of buyers”.
The average sale price across the UK is 92.7 per cent of the original asking price, according to the survey. In the capital, however, prices tend to hold up stronger, with the final price averaging 93.6 per cent of the asking price.
Properties are taking an average of 9.4 weeks to sell, the report also revealed.