House price falls 'accelerating'... (and the rest!)

The fall in house prices has accelerated in England and Wales, according
to the Land Registry.

Its latest report shows that prices fell by 1.9% in August, taking the
annual rate of price deflation to 4.6%.

The figures mean that the average property now costs £174,493; £8,320
less than a year ago, with £3,871 of that drop occurring last month.

Prices in London fell by 3.2%, the first monthly fall since the Registry
started publishing its figures in 2000.

Two months ago the Land Registry was suggesting that prices across
England and Wales were, on average, still 0.1% higher than a year ago.

But with prices falling sharply in August, its monthly survey is
starting to catch up fast with the surveys of lenders such as the
Halifax and the Nationwide who have both reported that prices are down
by 11% in the past year.

"Today's data from the Land Registry confirmed that house price falls
are gathering momentum," said Seema Shah at Capital Economics.

"With transactions less than half of their level a year ago, coupled
with the fact that the outlook for the economy is steadily
deteriorating, the speed of this housing market correction still has the
potential to step up a gear."

Falling sales

Both the monthly and annual falls recorded in August were the biggest so
far seen by the Land Registry, whose figures are based on prices
actually paid at completion of the sale.

All regions now have prices that are lower than they were a year ago,
with the biggest fall being 6.7% for the East of England and the
smallest drop that of 2.5% in North West England.

Looking at smaller areas, prices have fallen fastest in Denbighshire,
down by 6.7%, but have risen by 4.8% in Hartlepool, the biggest annual
rise of any county or local authority area.

As well as prices, transactions have been falling sharply too.

In June, the last month for which the Registry has complete data, sales
were 56% lower than the year before at just over 54,000.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ go/pr/fr/ -/1/hi/business/ 7637491.stm

Published: 2008/09/26 11:51:35 GMT