Sales of property with values over GBP1 million went up by 36 percent in 2007 compared with the previous year according to Halifax data.
There were over 8,250 sales of million pound plus properties, with over three quarters of them being in the south east of England and London. The largest increase in sales of million pound properties was in Scotland, where the measured increase by the Halifax was 138 percent. This was followed closely by the north east of England, with a 136 percent increase.
The south east has always had strong property values, said a Halifax representative, so it is not surprising to see it heading the number of sales list. It is also notable that rising property prices nationwide have driven up these type of sales further afield.
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 recent suggestion about the Alliance and Leicester being taken over by a larger European financial institution has been seen as both a good and bad thing by some experts.
On the one hand the Alliance and Leicester having strong financial support from a much bigger player would instil confidence in customers and probably drive more people to use them. That is a short term scenario though, with the potential longer term one being a market that has less choice.
When organisations join together there is a natural culling of duplicate products and a streamlining of the range – this would be no different with the Alliance and Leicester it has been suggested. Less choice means limited options for mortgage buyers and the likelihood that costs will ultimately be higher.
