The housing market appears to be recovering from its bout of pre-election jitters according to Connells Survey and Valuation. Valuation activity last month rose by 27% compared to May last year.
Maybe surprisingly due to the continued uncertainty surrounding the coalition’s housing policies, valuation rose by more than 10% in May compared to the April figure.
The MD of Connells Survey and Valuation, Ross Bowen, said that election distracted some buyers resulting in a slightly subdued housing market during April. However there has been a strong post-election revival. House prices are continuing to rise and consumer confidence is still growing.
He believes that although there are still doubts about the measures George Osborne will introduce in his June budget, the underlying fundamentals have already been put in place to enable the recovery to continue.
The increase in valuations is largely attributable to property owners considering moving home. The number of valuations conducted in May this year was up by 54% compared to the comparable month in 2009. Buy-to-let valuations on the other hand, which had been showing an annual improvement of 35%, dropped by 2% between April and May.
There are now more buy-to-let mortgages available but potential landlords will be waiting to see how the changes to CGT will affect them before making any decisions.
The suspension of HIPS has also boosted the market as more sellers have come forward. It is however still to early to say what the overall effect of this change will be.
4% more first-time buyers entered the market in May compared to April, but that is still down by 5% on May last year. Remortgaging also declined by a similar margin although it has increased by 63% year on year.
The latest House Price Index, released on June 1st by the Land Registry, shows an annual increase of 8.5% with the average home now costing £165,596. Out of this figure flats and maisonettes have seen the biggest percentage increase; up 11.6% to £157,784. This is the sixth consecutive month that prices have risen and the largest annual change for nearly 3 years.
The average property value in London now stands at £341,487 whilst in the North East you can snap up a property for an average price of £114,767, an annual increase of 4.4%.
Property owners in the Yorkshire and Humber region saw a month on month decrease of 2.2% in May and a total annual increase of just 0.7% to raise the average price to £124,806.
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