The coming year offers few chinks of light for most homeowners or would-be buyers. House prices are falling across the board and a lack of bank liquidity makes getting a mortgage extremely difficult for all but those with at least a 30% deposit. Ironically, however, 2009 could offer the best opportunity to buy for some time to come. How so?
By Gordon Miller
The majority of analysts are predicting that the latter part of 2009 – around October – will see the ‘bottom’ of the market. Thereafter, they say, house prices will start to flatten out before slowly increasing in certain areas in 2010, and onwards into 2011. Come 2012 and 2013, house prices will rise, the experts predict, and by 2016 they will recover to their peak October 2007 level.
Neil Chegwidden, Head of Residential Research at Jones Lang LaSalle, said: 'House prices in the UK will fall by 1 to 3% in 2010. We expect the UK housing market to see increasingly strong house prices as 2011 and 2012 progress. We forecast average UK house prices will grow 4 to 6% in 2011, accelerating a little to rise 8 to 10% per annum in both 2012 and 2013.'
Of course, not everywhere will recover its house prices at the same rate. London and the South East is usually the first into and out of a downturn. Traditionally, the North plays catch up on house price rises in boom times, and takes longer to slide into a depression, but stays in one for longer than the more affluent South East. The West Country generally experiences less extreme prices at the high and low end, as does the East of England.
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