According to an article in Reuters UK last week, Hometrack have reported that March’s annual prices show a fall that is the biggest ever in England and Wales. Overall house prices are a record 10.3 percent lower than they were a year ago.
This could be slightly misleading though because this shows the fall over the whole year, it is worth noting that the pace of the fall in March was the slowest it has been for 10 months. Still it gives us a perspective on the year in house marketing.
Hometrack further reports that the average selling price for houses in March was £156 000 which was 0.6 percent lower than February and represents the lowest monthly fall since May 2008. They do say, however, that this slow in the rate prices are dropping could be mainly down to seasonal factors.
“With the expectation of continued increases in unemployment and weak economic growth together with restricted availability of mortgages, it seems doubtful whether the increase in activity and sales will continue to gather momentum in the coming months,” said Richard Donnell, Hometrack’s director of research.
“Prices look set to remain under downward pressure over the rest of 2009,” he added.
There was some good news though with the proportion of postcode’s reporting house price drops falling to 50 percent from 59 and more people getting the price they were asking for their house.
All in all not the bleakest week in news we have had recently.
