The Nationwide Building Society house price survey recorded the biggest year on year fall since they began collating data in 1991.
June saw house prices drop by over 8 percent compared with the same time last year, also down 1.7 percent compared with the previous month. In monetary terms the average property now costs GBP15,000 less than it did a year ago according to the Nationwide Building Society, something that can be seen as both good and bad. For first time buyers there is the chance to afford a house that was previously out of reach, but existing homeowners may not want to sell if they bought recently since they would lose money.
This latest drop makes nine consecutive months of price drops in the housing market, putting them at their lowest since the summer of 2006. The Nationwide Building Society are one of the key players in the mortgage market and are hopeful that things will turn around.
The Nationwide Building Society housing data for April reveals that house prices fell by just over one percent during April, taking them to a lower price point than the same time last year.
This latest house price fall takes the market to a position where, for the first time in ten years, there has been a year on year decrease. A Nationwide Building Society spokesman thought that the falling price of property showed how lack of affordability and more difficult access to mortgages was really pressing the market.
They also went on to say that, with the market falling as it has been doing it may prompt further base rate cuts by the Bank of England. The Nationwide Building Society figures show a steep fall in property transactions over the last six months or so and this latest data suggests something really needs to be done to stimulate activity once more.
Halifax has just announced the eighth cut in their mortgage rates this year, with almost half of their mortgage products having their interest rates reduced by up to 0.15 percent.
A typical example is the Halifax 5 year fixed rate mortgage which comes down from a 6.49 percent interest rate to 6.34 percent. The Halifax has also cut fees on some of its products, with the recently introduced stepped tracker mortgage having GBP200 cut off the fee.
The mortgage market is seeing all manner of fluctuations right now, with the base rate and general economic climate leading mortgage providers to look at different ways to get customers on board. The Halifax is doing what it can by cutting rates and fees where they can and are hopeful that demand will increase on the back of them.
