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Southern property asking prices at all-time high – Rightmove

vickyhartley
Written By:
vickyhartley
Posted:
Updated:
14/04/2014

Following a 2.6% rise in just one month, asking prices in all southern regions reached record levels in April, with lack of supply driving growth.

Property company Rightmove said the annual growth rate of property prices reached 7.3%, the highest since October 2007 before the property price crash.

Housing supply is still up 13% on the previous year, but shortages of people putting homes on the market are still fuelling prices in many areas in the south. By contrast, northern regions are an average of 6% behind the October 2007 benchmark.

Rightmove spokesman Miles Shipside, said: “Records are tumbling, with a new national asking price record being set for the second consecutive month. London’s asking prices are at their highest ever level, and the strong ripple effect from the capital has also caused a new wave of record prices for property coming to market in the South East, the South West and East Anglia.”

All four of the southern regions, which include Greater London, South East, South West and East Anglia are ahead of where they were in October 2007, with London the stand-out performer at +41.8%.

Shipside said: “While much of the growth since October 2007 is down to the boom in London, the ripple effect from the capital means other southern regions are starting to play catch-up.

“This is evidenced by all of them now having property coming to market at average prices above the levels we recorded in October 2007, whereas all northern regions are still below that benchmark.”

Price pressures could begin to ease in some areas, said Rightmove.

Shipside said: “Supply in much of the south is ridiculously tight, with for sale board black spots in many popular locations within easy commuting distance of London.”

Tighter lending criteria under the Mortgage Market Review (MMR), already implemented by many lenders and mandatory from 26 April, may lessen buyer demand by making it harder to get the required mortgage, he said.

“The latest Bank of England seasonally adjusted mortgage approval statistics for February showed an 8.8% drop in the total value of mortgages approved for property purchase compared to those in January,” he said.

However, Shipside suspects the drop off in approvals is more to do with slower processing by lenders as new systems are introduced to comply with the MMR requirements and volumes will recover.

 


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