Residential landlords saw the values of their property fall by 12.2 percent in November, according to the latest figures for England and Wales from Land Registry. The average house price is now 161,883 pounds representing a monthly decrease of 1.9 percent.
London experienced an annual decrease in its average property value with a movement of -10.2 percent, taking the average London house price to 317,101 pounds.
Every region in England and Wales experienced an annual decrease in their average property values.
The next 12 months could make or break the UK housing market, according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA).
Chief executive Peter Bolton King said that three things needed to happen to start the recovery.
Firstly, major lenders must begin to make money available to potential buyers. Secondly, cuts in interest rates must be passed on to the market and lastly, consumers must begin to recover confidence in the state of the housing market.
After 12 months of gloom, Mr Bolton King said that 2009 is likely to be the year the recovery begins. Interest rates are likely to fall further, particularly in the first quarter of the year and the fall in house prices will begin to bottom out.
He said: “Officially house prices have come down since their peak by around 13 percent – but speaking to members it seems clear that in some areas at least prices have come down by more than 20 percent.
“We haven’t seen that kind of fall, in such a short period of time, ever before. However it is also clear that parts of the market are perhaps beginning to bottom out, and it seems possible to me that once the recovery begins, we could see a bounce as pronounced as the fall.”
He warned, however, if banks and Government do not make a major effort to increase the availability of mortgages to potential buyers, it will be a grim 2009 for the market.
Bolton King said: “If things do not improve, then the market could stagnate and that will have dire implications not only for the thousands of people employed in the (property) profession, but for the economy as a whole.”
* Prime Central London rents fell by 9.6 percent over the last three months of 2008 according to Knight Frank’s rental index, by far the largest drop since the company started publishing its quarterly figures in 1995.
Rents have now fallen for three consecutive quarters, by a total of 12 percent, taking rents back to the level last seen in March 2007.
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[tags]investment property, buy to let mortgages, landlord, landlords, rental property[/tags]
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