London Dictates House Prices

House prices increased with 0.4% within Octoberis of the opinion that "A flood of potentially
in London.over-priced properties coming to the market
The latest survey from Hometrack reveals thatwould certainly put an end to the recent level of
this year the growth of prices for houses wasprice rises."
the highest in two years time. Due to the annualMore over, the situation outside London is
increase of prices which was of 4.9%, an averageextremely different. The strongest price rises in
house in UK costs now approximatelythe country were just a little bit over half of the
£168,600.level of London. Therefore, the South East
But the engine of this constant house price rise isregistered a rise of 0.5%, while South East
in fact the Capital of England which is dealing withreached only the level of 0.2%. In other regions
an imbalance between the demand and the supply.such as North West, Wales, West Midlands,
Because of this, the year was marked with aYorkshire and lots of others, the rise was almost
9.9% increase of the prices and October onlyinexistent, recorded at only 0.1%.
recorded a rise of 0.9%.Richard Donnell explains the phenomenon: "Pricing
Even so, there are strong clues which permit uslevels are going through a prolonged period of
to believe that the trend of the market is goingre-adjustment in the wake of strong growth
to slow down. For example, the average timewhich took place between 2000 and 2004." He
needed in order for a property to be sold isalso added that "Judging by how long it took the
somewhere around 3 - 4 weeks and theseLondon market to adjust between 2001 and 2005
figures were registered three months ago also.this is a trend that may well last into 2007."
Further more, the proportion of the house priceIn the predictions of the representative of
rising has been decreasing lately and specialistsHometrack, the year is most likely to end with a
warn that the population has to be realistic with5% average growth of the house prices and
respect to the future prices growth.about 12% growth for London.
Hometrack's Director of Research, Richard Donnell