UK home owners more confident about property market than a year ago
17-01-2013
 This is up from 55% one year ago and the research from property website Zoopla also shows that less than one in five of those surveyed expect house prices to fall during the first half of 2013, compared to 29% one year ago. The Housing Market Sentiment Survey also shows that home owners expect UK property prices to rise by 3.2% on average over the next six months. With the average UK property currently valued at 226,908 by Zoopla that represents a predicted increase of ã7,261 on the value of the average home over the first half of 2013.
However, home owners remain downbeat about the availability of mortgages and on the whole see little sign of improvement in lending conditions.
Property owners in London are the most bullish on the outlook for house prices in their local area with 84% of them expecting prices to rise over the next six months and predicting an average rise of 5.8% versus the national average of 3.2%. Home owner confidence has re-bounded strongly from one year ago, with a significant majority now expecting to see house price increases over the first half of the year. While we are not yet back to the levels of post credit crunch optimism seen in late 2009, the increased confidence bodes well for both market activity and pricing in 2013, said Lawrence Hall of Zoopla. ґThe single biggest drag on both confidence and the market overall is still the availability of mortgage finance, or rather the lack of it, he added. |
