UK Housing Market Update How significant are City jobs for London's housing market? Popular perception dictates that City jobs are a crucial driver of London’s housing market. Yet there have been at least two previous occasions when significant City redundancies did not trigger house... 18th November 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Can high income multiples prevent a further adjustment in house prices? By allowing buyers to bridge the substantial gap between house prices and earnings, the recovery in average income multiples on mortgage lending towards their pre-recession highs has almost certainly... 16th November 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Why do policymakers keep returning to long-term fixed rate mortgages? Successive policymakers, of whom the Housing Minister is the latest, have called for greater use of long-term fixed rate mortgages in the UK. The argument goes that long-term fixed rate mortgages... 1st November 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Is London’s outperformance built on flimsy foundations? London has been reliant on a handful of the most expensive boroughs to deliver positive house price growth over the past year. To our minds, that leaves house prices in the capital looking susceptible... 29th October 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Is the house price correction about to pick up pace? Our forecasts already envisage that the pace of house price falls will increase next year. With most of the recent downgrade to our economic forecasts accounted for by the deteriorating prospects for... 21st October 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update How well founded is the rise in house prices in the South? Yesterday’s report by Rightmove illustrated the huge North/South divide in average asking prices. But the fact that this North/South split is notable by its absence from the transactions data suggests... 19th October 2011 · 1 min read
UK Economics Update Euro crisis to tip the UK back into recession The euro-zone debt crisis is likely to have severe adverse effects on the UK economy at a time when domestic contractionary forces are building. We now expect UK GDP growth to slow from about 0.8%... 18th October 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Can the mortgage market recovery weather the euro-zone crisis? Mortgage lending has strengthened in recent months. But strains from the crisis in the euro-zone are now showing through in UK lenders’ funding costs, giving another reason not to expect a fully... 4th October 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Will the end of the stamp duty holiday signal a surge in transactions? Previous experience suggests that a 20-40% increase in transactions in the final months of the stamp duty holiday is possible. However, given that only first-time-buyers (FTBs) are eligible for the... 28th September 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Buying vs. Renting: how does the choice stack up? To judge by much of the commentary surrounding the plight of “generation rent” you might conclude that anyone who can buy should do so immediately or risk being frozen out of the market. Yet even if... 20th September 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update How significant is the collapse in house prices in terms of gold? Taken at face value, the seven year decline in house prices expressed in gold might suggest that, relative to the precious metal, house prices are now ripe to recover. Yet in reality, we don’t think... 7th September 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Will valuations be restored by a period of stable house prices? If the recent pattern of flat house prices and modest income growth were to continue, it would take over a decade for the house-price-to-earnings (HPE) ratio to return to its long-run average. However... 16th August 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update What is holding back mortgage approvals? While restricted credit availability is clearly an important factor, until the pressure on consumer incomes eases and confidence improves, regardless of what happens to credit availability, there is... 3rd August 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Is the latest rise in net migration another positive for rents? If sustained, the latest rise in net migration should add to the upward pressures on rents over the next few years. But if the increase continues to owe as much to fewer British citizens leaving the... 23rd July 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Have food and energy price rises offset the benefit of rate cuts? The low level of forced selling over the past few years, which has been a key support for average house prices, owes much to the low level of mortgage interest rates. But given the squeeze on real... 22nd July 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Are mortgage approvals still a good lead indicator for house prices? The fact that the relationship between house prices and mortgage approvals has loosened over recent years does not mean that it has lost all its value. But in the absence of fresh, sharp falls in... 15th July 2011 · 1 min read