Buying, selling and letting - Market News

Property presenter joins HIPs protest

Property TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp joined Conservative housing spokesman Michael Gove MP last week in calling on Gordon Brown to abandon plans for Home Information Packs (HIPs). At a photo call, Allsopp, who owns a property location company as well as presenting shows such as Location, Location, Location for Channel 4, said HIPs could cost the property sector £600m a year.
Although due to give birth within days, Allsopp said she felt too strongly about the issue not to lend her presence to the shadow government’s campaign.
Charles Smailes, president of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), backed the opposition’s campaign against HIPs. ‘The lack of cohesion in government consultations has divided the industry and led the Conservative party to take this drastic action,’ he said.  ‘We urge the Government to start paying attention to the concerns of its opposition, the entire property industry and the public who according to NAEA research will not welcome the introduction of HIPs.’
Meanwhile, pro-HIP professionals struck back. Keith Gould, managing director of Stratify Associates Ltd, a Home Information Pack provider, said, ‘The current raising of the profile by various parties to axe Home Information Packs is no more than the final act of desperate parties grasping at straws. While one can detect the opportunity to bash all the policies put forward by the ODPM under John Prescott, this initiative has a significant difference: it has already been adopted by commercial companies. Of course, one mustn't forget the consumers' voice. After all, feedback gathered at the Homebuyers Show in March shows that 80 per cent of home buyers feel that HIPs will bring substantial savings to the home buying process.

House prices ‘beginning to stabilise’

The UK housing market is starting to slow as we head into the latter end of the summer, says Assetz in its latest House Price Watch report. While the market is continuing to show positive growth, we can expect price rises to taper off especially in London, as affordability reaches a ceiling.
The six major UK house price indices show an average of 6.74 per cent annualised growth for the 12 months prior to June 2006. This is a 0.22 per cent increase on the annual growth up to May (6.52 per cent) and a 2.51 per cent increase since the beginning of the year (4.23 per cent).
At the latter end of the summer, Assetz anticipates that annual growth will level off at around the five per cent mark, in line with its original predictions of five to seven per cent growth by the end of 2006.
The average house price, taken from the average price provided by all the six indices, is £189,408, up from £189,317 in May. This shows an increase of over £10,000 on the price of a home in the 12 months since June last year, when the average property price was £179,341.
Stuart Law, managing director of Assetz, said: ‘I am seeing no big surprises from the housing market this summer. A strong performance in the first six months is now beginning to slow, resulting in a confident five to seven per cent growth by the end of the year in line with our original predictions.’