Wednesday, Sep 08, 2010
''stabilised'' - *!%$
BBC: Halifax says house prices have stabilised
''House prices have stabilised, according to the latest survey from the Halifax.It says the cost of the average UK home rose by 0.2% in August, but the annual rate of increase declined further, from 4.9% in July to 4.6% last month.''
Posted by hpwatcher @ 08:51 AM (2345 views) Add Comment
27 Comments
- If you do not have an admin password leave the password field blank.
- If you would like to request a password allowing you to add comments and blog news articles without needing each one approved manually, send an e-mail to the webmaster.
- Your email address is required so we can verify that the comment is genuine. It will not be posted anywhere on the site, will be stored confidentially by us and never given out to any third party.
- Please note that any viewpoints published here as comments are user's views and not the views of HousePriceCrash.co.uk.
- Please adhere to the Guidelines
1. it_is_going_with_a_bang said...
It would take a very brave person to say that the housing market in this country is "stable".
2. Jonboy2010 said...
does this just mean that halifax had a better month than nationwide?
3. sibley's b'stard child said...
Ho hum, i'd been looking forward to this over the weekend.
I should either manage my expectations, or get out more.
4. Jonboy2010 said...
the calm before the storm
5. mystie010 said...
House prices up again - Yay! No need to start those presses rolling again and time for a rate rise me thinks!
6. paul said...
"Ignore the numbers and listen to the excuses this month"
Good ol' BBC. The editors' private interests really should be investigated at some point.
7. hpwatcher said...
I have to admit - I was expecting at least a 0.5% fall.........................
8. doomwatch said...
Not sure why it's taken longer to work out these figures this month, as we all know transactions have fallen off a cliff.
The meagre "rise" could either be down to a. advanced last minute cooking b. erroneous due to small sample
9. Rantnrave said...
Re SBC's comment - was looking forward as well. Also need to get out more...
These figures make me think that until IRs rise, we're in for a gradual fall in real terms. Since my salary is going nowhere in real terms, that isn't going to help too much. Buyers will refuse to buy and sellers refuse to sell at lower prices unless they absolutely have to. Watch transaction volumes plummet.
Not sure if I can be bothered to wait this out for another three or four years. Time to emigrate...
10. it_is_going_with_a_bang said...
A housing market on the edge of a cliff with 0.5% base rates ( for the last 18 months ) and a cut on the way of the bloated public spending.
Stability is not a word that springs to mind if I'm honest.
8 Sep 2010 ... UK house prices have stabilised
4 Jun 2010 ... The UK housing market is slowing down again, the Halifax says
6 May 2009 ... House prices slid by 1.7 per cent in April, according to mortgage lender Halifax
If you look at the language used by the Halifax it never really changes from a few key phrases. The only issue I would have with them is their view of "sound economics" supporting house prices - which is a phrase they have used on a few occasions.
Unaffordability is not sound economics.
11. str 2007 said...
I guess it's nice to see a positive number in the lead upto 2 busy months (Sept & Oct) to spur those waverers on who'd like to get into a new house for Christmas. (Or should that be get into new debt for Christmas)..
Yes, boo hiss I was looking for a fall this month aswell.
12. house said...
Sky News had this item as breaking news !!!
13. mark said...
just had an email from the auction house, guide prices reduced... hmm wonder why?
also there are a lot of properties from last auction not sold, coming back to auction, hmm wonder why?
I know because everyone is rushing to rightmove paying over the odds with a mortgage from halicocksacks
14. mark wadsworth said...
I find the Nationwide figures the most reliable.
Halifax tends to extreme swings, and as we well know, they had a phase when they delayed the release of the stat's until the morning of the MPC announcement (when prices were falling) which they changed to "a few days earlier" when prices have showed a rise (however modest).
The FT/Acadametrix, DCLG, HMLR ones are completely off the scale (or two or three months behind Nationwide), as they show average price of over £200,000. HMRC tables for Stamp Duty Land Tax confirm that the median price is about £150,000, which as we would expect is a tad lower than the overall arithmetic mean used by Nationwide.
15. phdinbubbles said...
Since the start of the bounce the nationwide has more accurately tracked the land registry (with a 3-month lag applied) than the halifax. The diveregence beween the two (in terms of percentage drop from peak) has increased significantly during the bounce, with this month being an exception - maybe they're moving back closer together, or maybe maybe the housing market is just plain bonkers now! - the three tracked each other closely (when normalised) before the bounce.
Also, the halifax does mos of its business in the south and the nationwide in the north, although they both say they manage to take this into account when compiling the indexes.
16. mark wadsworth said...
PhD, that's another good point. At one stage Halifax was about £20,000 higher than Nationwide, but the two have now aligned.
Plus Nationwide has the coolest spreadsheets, showing all sorts of stat's going back to 1952.
17. phdinbubbles said...
@MW
I like to plot them relative to their peak so I can see how much they've fallen as a percentage. This might or might not be a dodgy way of plotting things, but the fact they track each other well (when normalised in this manner) before the bounce and not so well after the bounce suggests to me that they are now less accurate (which makes sense wih low transaction volumes, etc):
(Land Reg shifted back three months)
18. timmy t said...
The numbers just don't stack up for me. Are they honestly saying that if (like many) you've had your 168K house on the market for 6 months and it hasn't sold, then you should put the price up because this month it's worth more?
I know they mix adjust their data, but how do you account for the fact that FTB's have all but disappeared, meaning the only people buying (which is where this data comes from), are those who are also selling, and these people have more expensive houses? If I sell my Fiat Punto in June for £1,000 and sell my BMW in July for £2,000, it doesn't mean that second hand car prices have doubled in a month.
19. mark wadsworth said...
PhD, nice chart.
Nationwide definitely looks to be most reliable, on a rough and ready basis the DCB appears to have clawed back half of the 2008-2009 losses, which is reflected in their chart (and as you say, HMLR is just 3 months behind the times).
20. uncle tom said...
Have a look at the historical data - the margin of error causes occasional upward stats on the monthly data, even when the trend is firmly downward.
'Stabilised' is pure wishful thinking..
21. sibley's b'stard child said...
@ Phd,
With regards to the regional discrepancies between Halifax and Nationwide, Timm on the forum made a post this week (if I recall from one of the two's own methodology) which disputed this; saying that it was only evident back in the 80s when this held true.
I don't know whether it holds water or not; still something to consider.
22. Majic said...
If some of the houses are being sold by pensioners who are downsizing, they presumably, do not need a mortgage and therefore their lower priced(?) purchases will not be included in Halifax or NW figures, but the higher priced houses they are selling, will. Ergo, in the absence of FTBs, the average must be skewed upwards. ... or am I missing something?
23. hpwatcher said...
Great graph. It really shows very nicely the dead cat bounce.
Was there a bounce like than in the 1990s? I don't remember seing one.
24. timmy t said...
hpw - have a look here... http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/graphs-average-house-price.php (Sorry - not clever enough to post graphs).
No bounce last time around according to this. Nice graph though - even smugdog could see the resemblance with our favourite life-cycle of a bubble graph here.
25. hpwatcher said...
Thank Timmy. It's flash, not an image - so not so easy to post link. But it is very interesting to see there was no bounce. I wonder why?
Perhaps it just means that on the way down, now there are more people able to buy - and of course QE keeping interest rates low too.
26. Frenchy said...
Call me an idiot but i've been watching these prices for a while now, and one thing I don't get is how on one hand can they say house prices are only slightly lower than this time last year, then say the annual percentage increase is still 4.6%.
i'm not up with figures so can someone please explain why it is not 4.6% more expensive than last august if this is the annual rate?
cheers
27. techieman said...
aside from the clear fundamental reason for the dcb (if that is what we have ) there is a technical reason . Which incidentally is why a dcb was predictable .