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Boost for the house market
From the Swindon Advertiser, first published Thursday 28th Feb 2002.
The housing market has a spring in its step with prices up by 1.6 per cent in February, creating excellent economic conditions for housing, according to new figures from Nation-wide.
The average price nationally paid for a house in February was £94,965, according to the figures from the Swindon-based building society.
Alex Bannister, Nation-wide's group economist, said: "House prices con-tinue to rise at a sharp pace, with prices up by 1.6 per cent in February.
"As prices fell modestly this time a year ago, the annual rate of inflation rebounded from 11.7 per cent in January to 14 per cent this month.
"The market is showing no evidence of a slowdown and house prices may rise more strongly this year than we had anticipated.
"We will review our forecast for house price growth at the end of March in our Quarterly Housing Review.
"Economic conditions are currently favourable and this has encouraged strong demand for property.
"Because supply of new dwellings is limited typically accounting for just 10 per cent of all house sales this demand is translating into sharp price rises.
"Homeowners are tend-ing to look for property before placing their own home on the market.
"This delay is leading to apparent shortages of available property and anecdotal evidence suggests this is a common feature in more buoyant areas such as the South West, East Anglia and London."
Mr Bannister said that the past few months had seen a re-emergence of faster price growth rippling out from London to the regions around.
Price growth was fastest in East Anglia, the South West and the East Midlands with London and its surrounding commuter belt cooling slightly.
Nationwide said that current buoyancy in the jobs market was helping underpin housing demand.
Real take home pay which determined the amount households could borrow was growing at its fastest rate for two years.
It was not just household income that was a factor, but also how many people were in employment.
Despite recent high profile job loss announce-ments this figure was also holding up, with the proportion of people employed close to record highs.
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