Property Crumble

Halifax Property Price Index comes out on top

We now have the two main indices – Nationwide and Halifax – giving the same readings – and that is of on-going weakness in the UK property markets.

There was a thought that given the diverging results of these two indices in January, that they must be measuring different sectors of the market.

However, now that are both delivering the same results, we can reasonably assume that the difference was the sample period – and that the UK property prices turned negative around the end of December 2009 / beginning of January 2010.

Equally, the property price falls are now in line with the economic fundamentals of weak employment, negative growth in disposable income and weak mortgage availability.

So, will property price pick up in the Spring? This is unlikely, not least because elections add to the feeling of uncertainty and won’t help chains of buyers and sellers to have the confidence to complete.

Nevertheless, in these recent results the Halifax index has shown that it is more up-to-date, as it reported the Dec / Jan price fall at the beginning of February, whilst Nationwide didn’t report a fall until the end of February.

So, to see if there is any change of direction in spring property prices, we need to follow the Halifax index.