UK Housing Market Data Response Mortgage Lending (Mar.) March’s mortgage approval figures from the Bank of England confirm that demand is struggling to regain the ground lost at the start of the year. We suspect that the huge gap between house prices and... 4th May 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Data Response Land Registry Repeat Sales Index (Mar.) The drop in the Land Registry house price index in March is likely to be reversed in April. Even so, with the economy seeming to have lost a little momentum in the first quarter, the labour market... 30th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Data Response Nationwide House Prices (Apr.) House price inflation returned to double-digit rates in April, for the first time since June 2007. However, with the pressure on household incomes more likely to rise than ease and surveys pointing to... 29th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Data Response Nationwide House Prices (Apr.) The contradictory messages offered by the Halifax and Nationwide house price data make it almost impossible to draw clear conclusions about the health of the market. But, at the very least, May’s drop... 29th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Data Response BBA Mortgage Lending (Mar.) The weakness of mortgage lending in March seems increasingly hard to explain by one-off or temporary factors. Yet it does fit with evidence that the labour market has begun to weaken again and that... 27th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Residential and commercial property prospects diverge At a simple level, our view that last year’s house price recovery will be reversed, while gains in commercial property capital values will be sustained seems at odds with the strong historical... 23rd April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Update Fragile labour market is still a threat to the housing market A number of temporary factors such as the snow, the end of last year’s stamp duty holiday and now the election, have all been blamed for the drop in housing market activity in the early part of the... 21st April 2010 · 1 min read
China Economics Update What should we make of China’s property crackdown? China’s attempt to crack down on speculative activity in its property markets does not signal that a property bubble is either inflating or about to burst. The new measures should help to tame price... 21st April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Data Response RICS Housing Survey & CLG House Prices (Mar/Feb) The message from March’s RICS survey is that the housing market recovery has stalled. The forward-looking balances, in particular, did nothing to alter our view that 2009’s rise in house prices will... 13th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Will lower net migration push rents lower? Net migration has been a major contributor to the growth of the private rented sector in recent years but, unless it drops considerably further, the recession-driven drop in migration is unlikely to... 9th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Data Response Halifax House Prices (Mar.) The rise in the Halifax house price index in March suggests that February’s drop was not the start of a new downward trend. However, with market conditions now loosening, mortgage lending criteria... 8th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Data Response Halifax House Prices (Mar.) Surveys of house price expectations, although weakening, are yet to signal the renewed falls that we are forecasting for the second half of this year. However, their record in anticipating price... 8th April 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Chart Pack Weak activity suggests that confidence is still fragile (Apr 10) The fact that activity measures showed little, if any, recovery last month suggests that the weather may have been a less significant distortion to January’s data than was initially assumed. Although... 31st March 2010 · 1 min read
Japan Data Response Pay & Housing Starts (Feb), SME & Manuf. PMI (Mar) Today’s data on labour cash earnings and housing starts in February continued this week’s run of generally disappointing news on the Japanese economy. The timelier Shoko Chukin survey for March did at... 31st March 2010 · 1 min read
UK Data Response Nationwide House Prices (Mar.) February’s surprise drop in the Nationwide house price index was not repeated, suggesting that the recovery in house prices still has some life. However, with mortgage lending remaining subdued in... 30th March 2010 · 1 min read
UK Data Response Nationwide House Prices (Mar.) February’s surprise drop in the Nationwide house price index was not repeated, suggesting that the recovery in house prices still has some life. However, with mortgage lending remaining subdued in... 30th March 2010 · 1 min read
