Happiness returning to the housing market

by John Fitzsimons on 09 July 2009  |  5 comments
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Housing market professionals are rediscovering their smiles, but is their confidence premature?

A surprising thing happened this week.

I spent Tuesday evening at the British Mortgage Awards, an industry bash recognising the individuals within a very troubled market that are still achieving great things.

There are a fair few of these awards dos in the mortgage market, and for the last two years, the attendees, almost to a man, have been some of the most depressed and gloomy people you could ever wish to meet.

But that was before this week. Because on Tuesday night, I saw smiles. I heard laughter. There was nobody crying into their champagne in a corner.

Everyone I spoke to, whether broker, lender or surveyor told a similar story: "We don't want to get carried away, but things are definitely starting to pick up."

One broker told me he had just had his busiest month in three years. The enquiries are at record levels, and with a shortage of property available, deals are going through quickly.

There has been a steady drip of positive news coming out of the housing market for a little while now, though the latest house price index from Nationwide building society suggested a tiny fall in house prices in the last month.

Despite that both Nationwide and various industry commentators have pointed to the data for the quarter as a whole, which is on the up, and highlighted this as a sign that the market is stabilising.

This is echoed by the latest findings from the Agency Express index, which measures the volume and activity status of 'For Sale' and 'Sold' signs across the UK.

I've blogged about this innovative new index before (Signs point the way to housing recovery), and it is interesting to see that the number of 'Sold' signs instructed by estate agents jumped a pretty significant 19.2% in June compared to May.

Indeed, Wales was the only region in the UK which did not see an increase in house sales over the month, while the number of sales in the second quarter of 2009 were up by more than 30% from the first quarter.

Of course, how much these various indices actually tell us about the housing market is always open to debate, but it is undeniable that sentiment at least seems to suggest that things are on the up once again.