The report showed that 20 per cent of home owners would be tempted to put their house up for sale if they found that a neighbour’s property was getting a good price, even if they had not originally thought about selling.
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However, this group has been warned by the NAEA about Home Information Packs (HIPs), as following their introduction in June, home owners will have to pay £500 for the purpose of ‘testing the water.’ This is expected to affect the housing market greatly, with the amount of available housing stock already in short supply.
Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the NAEA, said: “A significant percentage of sales that go through start with a seller ‘testing the water’. The lack of ability to do this without paying for a HIP first is likely to put many sellers off. This will reduce the supply of houses available, cause the market to slow down and lead to additional house price inflation. Both these factors could adversely affect the economy.”
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Jeff Kirk, corporate relationship manager at Leeds Building Society, said: “Recent data suggests that the number of new house purchases has decreased. While it will be interesting to see what impact HIPs do have on the market, the three rate rises since August 2006 appear to be biting and this, combined with affordability issues will have a greater impact on the market than HIPs.”
