The Hometrack Monthly National Housing Survey was released yesterday and the data shows a 0.2% increase in the monthly average house price. This is the first increase for 20 months. The average time that a property spends on the market has also dropped from 9.9 weeks in February to 9.7 weeks.
The percentage of postcodes recording a price increase jumped from 7.7% in February to 14.7% in March. Alongside this the percentage of postcodes recording price decreases dropped by 10% to 9.2%. The percentage of asking price being achieved rose slightly from 92.9% to 93% for March.
Hometrack Director of Research Richard Donnell commented:
“House prices posted a monthly rise for the first time in 20 months in March on the back of increased demand, activity and a scarcity of housing for sale. The survey of 1,500 agents and surveyors across the country shows that while the ending of the stamp duty holiday has boosted demand, the driving force behind the national increase was London where prices rose by 0.5% over the month. This is the highest monthly increase in prices in the capital since April 2010 (0.6%).”
The north-south divide is still strongly present in the property market. Of the ten geographical areas measured by the survey seven are showing no change or a price increase last month. Those areas that are showing price falls for March are Wales (-0.1%), the North West (-0.2%) and the North East (-0.2%).
Richard Donnell observed that:
“The survey results reveal a clear divide in the strength of the market between southern England and the rest of the country. In March, prices rose across two fifths of the London market and a fifth of the market in the south east. Across the midlands and northern regions the trend was towards price falls rather than price rises.”
Over the first quarter of the year there has been a strong seasonal uplift in demand. Richard Donnell argues that “Agents entered the year with relatively low levels of housing to sell, particularly in the south of the country and the surge in demand over February has resulted in a strong uplift in sales volumes.” It is suggested that this demand is partly due to the race to beat the stamp duty holiday.
Looking forward to the rest of 2012, the survey seems to point towards prices stabilising, although Richard Donnell warns that “the reality is that the housing market is not firing on all cylinders nationally and… price growth remains sensitive to supply/demand changes.”
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