House Price Surveys
Britain in a nation of homeowners with more than two thirds of
the population owning their own home. Given that homeownership
is likely to be most people's biggest asset, (followed by the
value of their pension), there has, in the last 50 years, been
intense interest in house price values.
Organisations such as the Halifax together with building
societies such as the Nationwide and Northern Rock produce
monthly house price statistics.
Other regular sources of information on the state of the housing
market include the website Hometrack, Barclays Bank and the
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), which all
produce monthly summaries of the state of the mortgage market.
HM Land Registry also releases figures showing the amount of
activity in the housing market while organisations such as the
Building Societies Association (BSA) and the British Bankers
Association (BBA) produce monthly figures showing the amount of
money they are lending in mortgages.
In 2003, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister also started
publishing statistics monitoring the housing market.
The study from the Halifax is the longest established and taken
as the benchmark by many professionals. However, like rival
surveys, the "Halifax monthly house price index", as it's known,
has its limitations. Only a sample of housing transactions are
being included in the count and only transactions through estate
agents are considered. Where there is a low level of activity in
the market, any rise/fall in prices may be magnified and will
not necessarily be an accurate guide to prices overall. The
varying house price surveys often disagree with one another
because although they purport to measure the same thing, they do
so in different ways.
Do remember, with the exception of the Land Registry and the
ODPM, most of the organisations that publish housing market data
have a vested interest in having a market that is as buoyant as
possible!
It will only take a few minutes of your time today but
could save you thousands of pounds in interest payments and will
eliminate any worries you may have about getting the best mortgage deal
possible.
