House prices have fallen for a second month in a row, Nationwide data suggests.
The lender’s House Price Index for November showed prices had fallen by 0.22% on a monthly basis to £214,044, following a 0.18% drop in October.
After seasonal adjustment, Nationwide claimed monthly growth was actually up 0.3%.
Whatever the measure, average prices are now at a six-month low.
The last time they were so low was in May when the average price was £213,618.
Annually, Nationwide’s figures showed average prices are up 1.9% after a 1.6% yearly boost in October.
Paul Smith, chief executive of haart estate agents, suggested the uplift in annual growth showed buyers were ignoring the “Brexit hysteria”.
He said: “Evidently, buyers are not caught up in the Brexit hysteria and are willing to pay more for their property, especially in the Midlands where prices are rising fastest.
“This week Mark Carney released his doomsday analysis of a ‘no deal’ Brexit which included claims of a house price crash.
“But we’ve heard this all before. In 2016 the Treasury said house prices would fall by 10% in the immediate aftermath of a vote to leave. Today they are 9% higher than June 2016.
“The reality is that European Union or no-EU, good Brexit deal or bad Brexit deal, the need to move home will always be there for a whole host of reasons, including for good schools, new jobs and better transport links.
“However, we cannot escape the fact that the property market is heavily driven by sentiment. In October the number of people registering to buy a home at our branches was up 37% on the year, but transactions are not keeping pace.
“Clearly buyers and sellers are holding off as they wait for greater clarity. If the Government can provide a strong vision of the UK’s post-Brexit future, greater stability and confidence will follow.
“Comments from those such as Carney who downplay the potential market conditions are extremely unhelpful and are hindering the market from reaching its full growth potential.”
It seems that Carney’s comments may be spooking some buyers, though, with one reader commenting on our Bank of England story last week that a sale had fallen through following the Bank’s Brexit analysis.
Let us know if you have had deals collapse because of this.
Assuming a buyer hasn’t been waiting since May 2016 to exchange, I suspect it’s convenient as a face saving excuse for a buyer to cite Brexit as a reason for pulling out, but as it’s been rumbling on for over two years now, it’s hardly new news.
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Lost two sales due to Mr Carney’s inability to keep his narcissistic mouth shut. Buyers are nervous and the last thing they need to hear is his preposterous non factual diatribe.
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I will never, ever, understand why estate agents think their primary duty is to talk up house prices. It is no surprise to me that so many are going bankcrupt. They should – surely – be focused on volumes of transactions. For transactions to occur buyers need to feel that they are getting value for money (which clearly they don’t at the moment). In virtually every sector of the economy where companies are involved in selling stuff, they try to show what great value their ‘product’ is, “everyday low prices” etc. But estate agents do exactly the opposite. They go out of their way to try to justify over-valuation. And then they wonder why no one wants to buy …
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