Housing Sales Slump

By Author: Filiberto Allison
Total Articles: 53
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The UK's housing market is in the doldrums and only five years into a 17-year slump, experts have warned.

And the gloomy figures produced by accountants PricewaterhouseCoppers said the market would only flatline this year, followed up in 2013 by a tiny 1.7 per cent growth.

The figures suggested that average house prices will have returned to their 2007 levels by 2017. Following that it will take another seven years to catch up with inflation.

In fact, the figures show that by 2020 prices will be up 30 per cent higher, but still seven per cent below their real terms peak.

Average house prices reached £189,000 in 2007, but last month they were £143,000.

The worst hit people are those who bought at the top of the market before the debt-fuelled housing bubble burst so spectacularly.

PwC said prices will bottom out at £138,000 in 2014, a total fall of 27 per cent, before starting to rise slowly.

The forecast heaps more frustration on first-time buyers who are fighting against numerous problems already.

The average age of a first-time buyer who does not have financial ...
... help is now well over 30, and could get higher.

PwC economist John Hawksworth said: A single person leaving university today is unlikely to be able to afford their first house until their late 30s without financial assistance from their parents or others.

He said the housing market will remain in the doldrums ‘for the next couple of years before starting to recover'.

He added: We have got a long way to go. Recovery in the UK has stalled over the past year as the eurozone crisis has taken its toll.

The report also painted a gloomy picture for the economy this year's economy and said that the euro crisis was taking its toll.

Mr Hawksworth said: The outlook for the UK as a whole remains cloudy but with scope for improvement - with GDP broadly flat in 2012 but picking up in 2013.

Max Erskine from remortgagenow.co said: It's true that when inflation is factored in then the house prices do look as if they will take time to recover - in some areas.

Other parts of the country are likely to have a quicker recovery and the market at the very top end hasn't suffered much at all.

But overall the housing market and the mortgage and remortgage industry is influenced by the wider economy and forecasts for that don't make easy reading.

With the eurozone in a perpetual state of disaster and Britain stumbling from month to month without any real upward trend, the future does look bleak.

But there have recently been signs of improvement and an injection of confidence might do the trick. But where that comes from is anybody's guess.

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