Hapi Down Again (-0.2%)

[mrpleasant]

Link here:

HAPI Sept 2011

[rantnrave]

Market sentiment across all regions of England, Wales and Scotland continues

to be downbeat. A vibrant rental sector together with limited supply of properties for

sale is serving to support prices to some degree, yet this situation may not last, as

forbearance amongst lenders cannot continue indefinitely.

[crashmonitor]

Link here:

HAPI Sept 2011

Just wonder how this 120 day average time on the market works. If only selling a house was that easy. Presumably you have five houses on the market and one sells after 120 days, the other four give up. In my book that makes the average sell time 600 days.

Am I wrong? if not this 120 day stat is a complete nonsense.

Edited September 12, 2011 by crashmonitor

[rantnrave]

Buried at the end of the report:

Negative equity imperils the housing market

Four years ago we witnessed the monumental bad mortgage bank busts in the US

(Bear Stearns) and UK (Northern Rock). The ensuing financial crisis meant that in

September 2008 the Bank of England began slashing interest rates as the economy

ground to a halt. Hence, nearly three years on we can look at the results of the ZIRP

(zero interest rate policy) intended to save the housing market and mortgage

lenders. Of course, setting ultra-low rates was not enough to reinvigorate the

economy. Quantitative Easing (printing money) was the next rabbit to be pulled out

of the hat by our financial wizards (and it looks like more of this potent elixir will

need to be poured on the smouldering fires of commerce).

The US and UK are not the first countries to take this course of action

following an almighty housing bust. Japan took the ZIRP route in the 1990’s and the

resulting negative equity burdened their housing market with years of woe and was

dubbed the ‘Lost Decade’. In fact, for many the period of being trapped in the same

property as prices slide year after year was longer than 10 years. Here is an excerpt

from an article we published in 2006 where we warned of the looming ‘Tipping Point’

for the UK property market and the possible consequences.

Japan suffered one of the biggest, and best documented, property market collapses in modern times. At

the market's peak in 1991 all the land in Japan was worth about £10 trillion, or almost four times the

value of all property in the United States at that time. Then came the property crash, after the Japanese

central bank finally moved to raise interest rates. House prices plunged into a 14-year slump, from which

they have only recently started to recover.

In 2005 Japanese property was worth less than half its 1991 peak, meanwhile un-mortgaged

property in the United Kingdom has more than tripled in value, to reach a total value of around £3.6

trillion and debt secured on UK property has risen to around £1 trillion, both all time highs. Private

homeowners were amongst the hardest hit. In Japan's six largest cities, residential prices dropped 64%

between 1991 and 2004. By most estimates, millions of homebuyers suffered substantial losses on the

single largest purchase of their lives.

Their experience contains clear warnings for UK homebuyers.

Moreover, a recent report by HML, the financial outsourcer, stated that, “Currently

827,321 homeowners - 7.3 per cent of all households with a mortgage - have a debt

that is greater than the value of their property. If house prices fall by 10 per cent

that number will double to 1.67m - 14.8 per cent - which is close to the record 1.8m

negative equity cases seen in the house price crash of the early 1990s.”

As house prices slide further year after year, more and more homeowners fall into

the negative equity trap. The consequences for the UK property market are that

fewer and fewer properties will change hands. Even those people that must move

through work, divorce or growing family will chose to rent out their property (and

there is plenty of demand for rented property) rather than accept the financial loss

required to make a sale.

[leicestersq]

Just wonder how this 120 day average time on the market works. If only selling a house was that easy. Presumably you have five houses on the market and one sells after 120 days, the other four give up. In my book that makes the average sell time 600 days.

Am I wrong? if not this 120 day stat is a complete nonsense.

Lots of places do sell very quickly. It's an average, so it poses as one number to represent hundreds of thousands of different numbers.

[Pytyr]

Even those people that must move through work, divorce or growing family will chose to rent out their property (and

there is plenty of demand for rented property) rather than accept the financial loss required to make a sale.

Quite agree. Increased rental supply does mean lower rents though, odd they don't mention that.

[rantnrave]

London (asking) prices dropped back by 0.9% over the last month.

Refreshing to see the capital is in the middle of the range of figures being put out for the regions, rather than just continually going against the tide.

More proof, it it were needed, that London is not immune. Drops in the capital will exert a greater downward pressure on the Haliwide sold prices too.