UK Housing Market Focus Will central London property be immune from further falls? In the next two to three years, central London house prices will be more resilient than the wider market. But we still expect them to give up ground. It is plausible that central London house prices... 9th February 2011 · 1 min read
UK Economics Focus Is the housing market heading for a double-dip? Low interest rates alone will not prevent the recent falls in house prices from being extended, perhaps significantly this year. Rather, we expect that the benefits of low interest rates will be... 28th January 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Will arrears and possessions increase to US levels? If we are right that unemployment will rise markedly over the next two years, the rates of arrears and possessions will increase. However, three features of the UK’s mortgage market should keep the... 19th January 2011 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus The FSA's responsible lending proposals; "a step too far"? Claims that the FSA’s responsible lending proposals will do lasting damage to the size and structure of the mortgage market assume that the historically high gap between house prices and incomes is... 22nd December 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus How much bigger will the private rented sector get? Over the next three to five years, we think that the most likely scenario is that the private rented sector (PRS) continues to expand. By 2015, it is plausible that 16% or even 17% of households will... 24th November 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Will detached prices outperform because of tight credit? Detached house prices will prove to be more resilient than other types of residential property in the next two to three years. Higher earners, who disproportionately demand this most expensive type of... 17th November 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Is UK mortgage affordability worse than other countries? Intuitively, one might expect the high population density and apparent structural undersupply of housing in the UK to mean that we have historically spent a higher proportion of our earnings on... 21st October 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Have there been previous double-dips in house prices? A second round of falls in house prices would not be without precedent. There are at least eight examples of double-dips in real house prices in the international data from the past 40 years. But... 5th August 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus The outlook for house prices in the North West Over the next 20 years, house price growth in the North West is likely to match the UK average closely. If anything, the North West may slightly outpace the UK. However, there will be considerable sub... 19th July 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Property in the new Parliament At the time of the 2015 election, we expect commercial property prices to be more or less unchanged from their current levels. Yet despite the low interest rate environment, the outlook for... 12th July 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Emergency Budget 2010: Tough but tender This was a Budget with two faces. The total discretionary tightening will build up to 8% of GDP per annum by 2015-16, larger than Canada’s in the 1990s, but smaller than Sweden’s and Finland’s. 22nd June 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Have households accelerated their mortgage repayments? Claims that households have begun to step up the rate at which they are paying back their mortgages do not look well founded. Rather, over the past year or so, repayments of mortgage principal have... 18th June 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 Housing Market Focus Budget 2010 This was a clever budget which made the most of very difficult circumstances. The Chancellor largely avoided the temptation to bribe the voters with their own money. There was a package of tax cuts... 24th March 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus Recovery or relapse in the housing market? Given our views that the labour market shake-out has some way to go, we believe that house prices will suffer a relapse in 2010. Our central forecast is for prices to fall by 10% taking them back to... 22nd January 2010 · 1 min read
UK Housing Market Focus What does the future hold for Scottish house prices? Scotland’s housing market may have shaken off its reputation as an underperformer compared to the UK in recent years, but its longer term outlook is not so promising. Unfavourable demographics and a... 14th January 2010 · 1 min read
