Property Crumble

UK Property Prices - Slowly Sliding?

Nationwide’s index reported a modest increase in UK property prices in the February to March 2010 period.

At the same time, the US Schiller index reported weak US property prices amid growing consumer confidence.

The UK’s chancellor also announce an attempt to reflate the UK property bubble by suspending stamp duty for first time buyers on properties up to £250,000.

So what is happening?

Firstly, property prices are not collapsing or falling significantly (as per the index) however, the  number of mortgage approvals is still very low and there are clear suggestions that only the ‘best in the road’ properties are selling with all other less attractive options unable to obtain a buyer.

This flight to quality means that the indices will in effect compare the prices of the weaker properties (which sold in a strong market) with the stronger properties which are still selling in a weak market (unlike their weaker cousins).

What do we mean by weak property?

Well, simply properties that need work doing to them – or lack basics such as double glazing or where the wiring is a bit old, or it may simply by that the stronger properties are being sold with display furniture from the developer and so forth.

All of these subtleties are lost by the indices and explain why the indices don’t drop as much as it feels they ought to in a weak market. Or, why the indices don’t manage to reflect the real experience of property buyers and sellers.

Secondly, the US is reporting, at the end of march, more positive news on consumer confidence with an expecting increase in employment – however, the US property price forecasts remain on the slightly negative side.

This suggests that we could see growing consumer confidence coupled with stagnant or weak house prices. And, if the much anticipated inflationary pressures get stoked in either the UK or US, then house prices will fall in real terms.

Property Stocks per Chartered Surveyor, Feb 2010, RICS. Property Crumble

UK equities were affected by today’s news that not much is happening with UK property – but that bad news may be on the way.

The number of sales completed in February has fallen and the level of stocks remains fairly level.

Following last month’s fall in mortgage lending, this all points to a state of ‘not much happening’  but there is a warning of deterioration.

Using the graph, based on data from RICS, you can see that the number of properties held on a surveyor/ estate agents’ books rose rapidly during the early stages of the credit crunch Aug 07 to Mar 08. Then, once there was too much property, the over supply was steadily reduced to Jun 09, by falling property prices – around 25% from peak to trough.

In March 09, just a few months before property stock levels bottomed out in June 09, the prices falls ceased and once property stocks found a steady equilibrium, so prices rebounded about 8% over the next 7 months.

So, what do we make of this latest data?

The level of stocks has not changed dramatically, but the number of sales has fallen.

Therefore, the pain of the UK property market is falling on the property estate agents and we may expect to see branch closures and mergers unless those units can switch into an active lettings market.

However, RICS also reported that the rate of new instructions is increasing faster than buyer enquiries. The implication is that we will see an increase in stock levels in the next couple of months and then, we’ll see prices weaken to reflect the level of stock increase – as before.

It would appear, therefore, that low interest rates has encouraged sellers to hold onto property stock for longer than they might otherwise have done so, and look to sell in Spring 2010. Now that the better UK weather is fast approaching, we are seeing a large pent up supply begin to arrive in the market.

Therefore, expectations are that UK property prices will fall and that the spring market will serve to increase the supply, not to increase demand.

So, property prices might stagnate over the next couple of months as sellers and agents hold out for hoped for spring demand and higher prices, only to start to soften by the early summer and fall sharply in the autumn.

It is going to be a very tough year to be an estate agent.

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.

Nationwide's Chief Economist

The Nationwide’s UK property price index turned negative at the end of January and early February pricking the balloon of positive property price news.

Last month we reported diverging results from the two key UK indices – with Nationwide showing property price growth and Halifax showing a decline.

The fact that Nationwide sources data from an earlier period suggests that Halifax will also produce negative growth figures for UK property in a couple of weeks time.

Once again, the fact that the market turned negative in January was disguised by the indices which delivered a mixed message last month.

Therefore, the indices continue to provide a backward view on property prices and little basis for projecting forward growth.

Why do we say this? Well, Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist claims the fall in the February figures was due to the icy weather and the ending of the stamp duty incentive on 31st December.

What is interesting about this comment is that events that took place at the end of December and early January are cited as the reason for the falling in the February price indices. Equally, wouldn’t poor weather normally reduce sales volumes rather than reduce property prices? The fact that prices fall when volume falls suggest that sellers are willing to reduce prices and that this may continue even when the weather improves.

This tells us that the indices are effectively reporting on the market of 2 months ago – and not on the current state of affair.

It would be better then to say that prices have been falling since the end of December 2009 and as the talk of interest rate rises increases and uncertainty about an election looms, are there any brave voices willing to predict a pick up in the Spring?

House Price Growth Slows says FT (4th Feb) vs House Prices Rise Sharply in January says FT (29th Jan) just 6 days earlier.

How did the FT do it? On the 4th of Feb they told us that ‘house prices rose at their slowest pace in six months in January according to a closely watched index (Halifax)… adding to signs that the rapid pace of recovery may be slowing’

Yet only a week before on 29th Jan the FT told us ‘UK house prices posted strong gains in January according to a closely watched index‘ (Nationwide).

So what is going on?

Well, one closely watched index samples from late December to late January and reported in January – that said house prices were going up.

The other closely watched index, reporting in early Feb, measured price changes in January only – not December – and that told us the price rises were slowing down and the prospects looked weak.

The trouble is that the FT didn’t clearly distinguish one index from another and told us that both indices are ‘closely watched’.

This  reporting might be acceptable on a cheap newspaper, but its appearance on a quality financial paper suggests either that the we’ve all grown rather bored of property prices indices and just reprint the press releases or the press releases are able to baffle the bright journalists at top business newspapers.

The interesting story, of course,  is not the latest report on house prices, but the volatility of the different indices. Typically, when the market is moving in the same direction, the indices are either both positive or both negative.

What is new is that we have a marketin which the indices are going in different directions.

This index conflict could be down to either

a) each index measures a similar sample of the market (or it is able to statistically adjust the figures to ensure it is not biased) in which case, the difference must be a result of the positive growth index taking an earlier sample and the negative index taking a later sample.,

If this is the case, then we must conclude the UK property market has turned negative in early Jan.

or

b) the positive index is measuring the sector of the UK property market that is making sales and achieving better sales than last year whilst the negative index shows that there are other parts of the market that are falling.

Or possible, a combination of the two.

Who knows, but it is instructive nevertheless to know that what we hear about property is simply regurgitated without any critical analysis or thinking.

And that property price indices are most interesting when the disagree.

Next month, we shall watch carefully to see if either index has switch from positive to negative (or vice versa) or if they continue to disagree…. from which we should be able to conclude that either the market has turned or that each index samples a different sector of the market.

Scary news reported today on CNN Money that job loses in the US may have been 800,000 higher than previously estimated.

So, instead of 7.2m jobs lost, the figure is now 8m.

It is called a revision and suggests that the figures we read about in the news are not only out of date by the time we read them, but that what we experience ourselves is a more accurate indicator much of the time.

For most of 2009, on the street, US and UK people keenly felt the loss or risk of loss of jobs. The figures in both countries, but especially in the UK, much lower than expected.

Nevertheless, we are beginning to get explanations for this starting with the revised calculations in the US and predictions that the UK’s unemployment rate will rise from 7.9% to 9%, despite the country narrowly escaping recession.

Either way, the higher ‘actual’ or delayed job figures is a clear downward indicator for property prices in the US and UK.

This graph tells the full story anout UK property prices in 2009.

No, it is not a graph of property prices, but of the two measures of inflation used in the UK.

The modest inflation – or CPI – is used to set interest rates and dipped last year but remained positive.

The more volatile inflation – RPI – dropped rapidly last year and gave the UK economy 9 months of deflation.

Only, the deflation fact was kept firmly in the bag because no one uses (or talks about) RPI any more.

So, what is the difference? Essentially RPI includes the cost of housing including an average mortgage. Even though nearly everyone either has no mortgage or a much larger mortgage.

Hence as mortgage costs dropped due to the interest rate cuts, so this RPI measure fell sharply. Ordinary consumers - especially those with large mortgages –  must have felt a sudden surge in the cash available in their wallets and an increase in their willingness to spend it.

So, housing demand rose and prices stabilised and even lifted around 10% from the year’s low point in March 2009.

But what does the graph tell us now? It shows rapidly rising RPI and CPI inflation in December 2009. In other words the benefit of the sharp drop in interest rates is falling out of the figures and therefore the new inflation figures show what is happening in the world outside of housing. And the picture painted is one of rapidly rising inflation.

Now, the next step in the 2010 scenario is that the Bank of England may have to start tightening interest rates, which will make the RPI figure rise much higher and faster.

The interesting comparison is that fall in RPI last year mirrors the pick up in the property market.

And the rise in RPI this year mirrors the fact that houses sold before Christmas are falling through and ’sold’ stock is coming back onto the market just as demand is perishing.

Property prices are already falling for the simply reason that sales have stagnated and there is little prospect of an increase as the cost of living rises sharply couple with gradual tax rises through the year and into 2011.

In the UK, interest rate cuts since the start of the crisis have delivered the average £103,000 floating rate mortgage holder an annual saving of £4,635. Against that, the government estimates the net cost of bailing out the financial system at £10bn – or £400 per household.

In truth the same mortgage support has been provided to homes in economies across the developed world.

And, whilst economists don´t know how or when that support will be removed, there is little doubt that it will be removed and hence house prices face a major deflationary impact sometime in the near future.

How much will these houses cost in 2010?

At the end of December 2009, the UK Government withdrew its tax relief on home in the first and second time buyer price bracket (125,000 GBP to 175,000 GBP) and it was accompanied by a reported 0.4% price rise in UK property prices in Dec 2009 by Nationwide and a 2.2% drop recorded by Rightove.

Nationwide´s modest rise is slightly down on the 0.5% rise in November whilst rightmove reported a sharper fall of 2.2% against 1.6% in November.

So, the housing market is either weak or weaking.

The question is, to what were he weak prices supported by buyers pull forward their purchases in order to avoid the stamp duty due from 1st of Jan 2010?

Is this the housing equivalent of the cash for clunkers deal for cars?

The answer is probably not. Yes, the volume of property sales in the lower price brackets (below 250,000 GBP) held up well, but it fell sharply in the higher price brackets where sales volumes were much lower and prices softened rather than firmed (as they did in the lower price groups).

2010 is likely to find that sales volumes in the lower price range will fall and prices will soften as Goverment support is withdrawn and the modest effect of home purchases brought forward takes its effect.

However, the real question we need to ask when forecasting short term property prices (ie upto 1 year) is what will happen to interest rates?

We don´t know, but we do know this about 2010

• Government debt default (perhaps by Greece or Dubai or another hidden gem) is a real possibility that we will live with all year (even if it doesn´t happen)
• UK and US Governments will come under increased pressure to deal with their debt
• The dollar may rise as it is seen as a safe haven, which might mean US interest rates lift
• UK Commercial property refinance needs could derail two major UK banks and create a new banking crisis and forcing UK interest rates higher and derailing UK residential property prices
• UK Tax hikes will not take affect in 2010 but in 2011, thereby putting further downward pressure in UK property towards the end of 2010.

Okay, we can only conclude that the risk for interest rates is an upward move. Essentially, if something really good happens, then interest rates will rise – in both the UK and US , and if something really bad happens, interest rates will rise.

Therefore, low and stable interest rates are dependent on a very stable and low growth economic scenario.

Therefore, the best that might be hoped for is a modest 3 to 4% increase in property prices, but with the equal risk of a fall of 10 to 15%. Albeit, you can expect the wide divergence in property price indexes to continue.

The result is likely to be somewhere in the middle, but the risk for property prices is clearly on the downside.

Commercial Property Time Bomb?

The affect of the commercial property sector – which is linked to the health of companies using warehousing, offices or retail space – on the residential property sector should be negligible.

Sadly, this decoupled effect isn’t going to work in this property recession.

Here’s why:

Residential property values are closely linked to the ability and willingness of banks to lend or issue residential property mortgages (okay, also known as home buyer mortgages).

The growth in prices in the US and UK and other developed western European economies since 2004 has largely been a result of increased credit and not fundamental shifts in demand or capacity to purchase.

Therefore, the role of finance in determining property prices has grown significantly in the past 5 years such that what affects the banks now directly and significantly affects the availability and price of residential mortgages and therefore house prices.

Remember that at the peak in 2007,

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