A housing market confidence monitor from national property web portal assertahome.com said that house hunter confidence fell during June, though most people still expected prices to keep rising. However a sizable minority (34 per cent) said they believed that house prices would fall.
Confidence appeared highest in the North West, with house buyers in the South East the most pessimistic.
The Halifax house price index meanwhile showed the gap between prices in the North and South was continuing to close. Greater London prices are now 2.02 times higher than those in the North West, compared with 2.72 times higher during the same period in the second quarter of 2002.
The West Midlands and East Anglia now have average property prices of over £150,000. Previously only Greater London, the South East and South West had achieved this.
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) maintained interest rates at 4. 5 per cent at the start of July. Ray Boulger, senior technical manager at Charcoal, said the decision came as no surprise. “The four base rate increases since November now appear to be one important factor taking the edge off what has been an over-exuberant rate of house price growth,” he commented.
Boulger went on to predict a soft landing for the market.
