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| ::House price decline accelerates - 27th March 2009 |
| House prices are falling even faster than before in England and Wales, according to the Land Registry. Prices dropped by another 2% in February, pushing the annual rate of decline from 15.1% to 16.5%. It means the average property is now worth £153,862, down by £30,361 in the past year, and back to the level last seen in September 2004. Prices have now fallen for 18 months in a row, dragged down by the impact of the recession and the mortgage drought. The Land Registry's figures confirm the downward trend indicated by other surveys, such as those from the Halifax and the Nationwide. Hand-in-hand with the fall in prices has gone a slump in sales. This week the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) published figures showing that property sales in the UK hit a new low. There were just 42,000 completed transactions in February, only slightly higher than in January but half the level seen a year ago. Earlier this month figures from the Bank of England suggested that the number of mortgages being approved, but not yet lent, had bottomed out at an average of 31,000 for each of the past six months. But despite surveyors and estate agents reporting a pick-up in enquiries from would-be buyers, there is little evidence so far that this is translating into higher sales. |
| Source of this article : |
| From bbc/news.co.uk - 27th March 2009 |
| Date of this item added : |
| 2009-03-27 |