Online House Hunter: Treading water

Robert Gardner: Nationwide's chief economist

ANOTHER month, another set of house price figures to mull over. And while journalists may be looking for an enticing headling, the reality is rather more complex.

Nationwide is quick off the mark with its House Price Index published today and revealing a 0.3% increase in house prices month-on-month in February. But before you get too excited, that still means prices are 0.1% lower than one year ago.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, sums it up well by describing the overall pictures as “one of a market treading water”. And he’s not too excited about much market improvent during 2011.

Here are some of the key points from Nationwide’s report:

• Some signs of unsold homes becoming a problem. See also this report from the Manchester Evening News.
• Numbers of first time buyers low but proportion has surprisingly constant (37% of house purchases in recent months)
• Mortgages: The average deposit on a home has increased from 10% of the property’s value to 21%. Mr Gardner notes: “This means that, for an  average worker earning an average salary saving 15% of take home pay, it would take eight years to put down a typical deposit to buy the average house”.

For the full report visit Nationwide.

USEFUL LINKS

• Our Online Property Search
• Land Registry (for detailed house price trends)
• And a very useful gadget at Nationwide for finding out how your own house is doing

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