Countrywide: " It Will Be Another Tough Year"

[Realistbear]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-01/british-housing-market-faces-a-tough-year-country-s-largest-broker-says.html

British Housing Market Faces a `Tough Year,' Countrywide Says

By Simon Packard - Dec 1, 2010 12:00 AM GMT

U.K. home prices may fall by as much as 5 percent next year as the government raises taxes and cuts jobs to reduce the record budget deficit, the country’s largest property broker said.

“It will be another tough year,” Grenville Turner, chief executive officer of Countrywide Plc, said in an interview. The company, based in the town of Milton Keynes in southeast England, handles one in 10 British home sales.

Home prices will drop the most in cities with the highest proportions of state employees, Turner said. In northeast England, which includes Middlesbrough and Newcastle, average values declined 0.9 percent in October from a year earlier, while in London they rose 7.6 percent, according to the Land Registry. The overall increase of 3.4 percent was the smallest since December 2009.

IMO this is almost ramping. 5% drop next year? How about 5% drop in one month after Crimbo.