Property Price falls fact or fiction?

[em17]

Everyday in the press a 10%+ fall is reported. Nationwide, Hometrack and Rightmove all report ASKING prices which indeed have fallen but give no reflection on actual prices achieved. Halifax bases its statistics on mortgage offers (not completions) made by the HBOS group and does not reflect cash buyers. The only acuate stats are from the land registry which show an annual change of 2% decline. This cant be viewed as a crash surely? Why do the press not report this? The real story is the difficulty in obtaining mortgages and the lenders attitude towards lending.

[googler]

Which headline grabs your attention more?

"House prices crash by 10%"

"House prices fall by 2%"

Do the papers want to sell more papers or less?

The content of the story, whether wholly true, or slightly bent out of shape. doesn't matter to them, as long as you buy their paper and not the one next to it.

[dje494]

Fact for a lot of areas, take a look at rightmove.

Dave

[googler]

As the original poster said, isn't Rightmove reporting on ASKING prices?

If someone had a real-time database of selling prices, updated daily, that'd be the one to monitor....

[dje494]

Originally Posted by googler

As the original poster said, isn't Rightmove reporting on ASKING prices?

If someone had a real-time database of selling prices, updated daily, that'd be the one to monitor....

I agree, they are the asking price and they are dropping.

I cannot imagine anyone paying more than the asking at the moment so it is a reasonable barometer of what happening out there.

Dave

[Rob]

Dont think prices are going to get any better in the next year or so either

[Melsa]

I would have to agree with Dave, people do not normally pay more than asking price, therefore this is a way to gauge the selling prices. If the asking prices are dropping, they are dropping because people are not willing to pay higher prices, which means that the selling prices are dropping too

[googler]

Originally Posted by Melsa

I would have to agree with Dave, people do not normally pay more than asking price ...

...except in territories like mine, where property is routinely marketed at an 'Offers Over' price, and, depending on area, demand for that area, number of people in the market for that area and house, the price achieved can be a significant, but variable, percentage over the 'Offers Over' price.

In some cases, I've heard of properties achieving up to 30% over the asking prices, but of others where the percentage was in single figures. The last publicly-quoted average for my county as a whole was 18% - but for every one that got more than this, there'll be another below; that's the nature of averaging.

Point is, there's no direct correlation between asking price and selling price in this case, therefore I submit that monitoring the asking prices in Rightmove etc. doesn't give the full picture.

[MarkSev]

I would have thought in the majority of cases the asking price is a starting point for negotiation right now. I'd be shocked if anyone were paying the asking price currently (with odd exceptions in particular markets). The only real barometer are actual Land Reg prices but this is too slow and ends up being history. Most home owners seem to be resisiting putting their properties on the market or substaintially lowering asking prices. It's large developments (and small sites) that are reducing prices to move stock and turn cash mostly. It's right that this 'downturn' has been hyped by the media, they've been hunting for this over last 2 years.......

[brian]

Originally Posted by googler

If someone had a real-time database of selling prices

Isn't that what the DLHG index covers?