In the world of surveying, common questions abound and are always being asked. ‘What is going to happen to UK house prices?’ tends to be the most common and the most general, and the answer is always, ‘We just don’t know’.
In 2014, five or so years, after the worst excesses of the pre-Credit Crunch mortgage and housing market were laid bare for all to see, the FPC introduced two changes designed to curb those excesses specifically in the lending sphere.
Tell most people you are involved in property, or the mortgage and housing markets, and you’re likely to get a number of stock questions thrown back at you.
Understandably, after the end of the stamp duty holiday in September, many were wondering what the repercussions for the housing market might be in October. Would we see a notable drop-off in transactions similar to that which was evident in July?
If that sounds like the type of lazy question you might get asked at a job interview, which is almost impossible to answer, then I apologise.
September always feels like a ‘new year’ even if we are just four months away from the actual end of one. It must be something to do with school days and going back to that feeling of wearing a new uniform which tended to look new for all of a few days.
We are now over four years on from the Grenfell Tower disaster which took the lives of 72 people and brought to light just how dangerous, and susceptible to fire, some of the cladding was (and is) on hundreds of buildings all across the country.
If you’re a UK consumer who takes only a passing interest in the housing market then the likelihood is your views on ‘what it is like’ are probably shaped by the media, perhaps specifically the newspapers, you read.
There has been a lot of conjecture around the so-called cliff-edge for transactions come the end of the stamp duty holiday, although it has to be said this has been dissipated by the decision to extend until end of June, followed by the partial holiday until the end of September.
It’s always fair to say that housing supply continues to fall well short of demand, and even if existing homeowners are more willing to put their properties up for sale, that doesn’t add to the number of new homes required each and every single year.
