House prices in Britain have decreased at the highest speed during the last six months this April. Some researches claim that this is the result of a temporary rise caused by a tax holiday and unusually warm weather fixed this March. The house price balance adjusted seasonally by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors downgraded to -19 from gently modified -11 this March, considerably undermining economists’ predictions for a -10 reading. However, London turned to be the only British city where housing prices increased regardless the slowest rates since the middle of 2011.
In fact, it is the first time the home sales jumped down since September. Earlier the housing costs were supported by an exemption from a transaction fee on homes for the first-time buyers. However, this transaction tax cost less than 250.000 pounds that has already expired in March. Unseasonably warm weather has also contributed into falling house prices, encouraging Britons to visit new homes more frequently.
Peter Bolton King, the RICS housing spokesman, said that it was not surprising to see home prices fall in most UK regions because of the recent boom in housing activity that had been caused expiring stamp duty holiday.
Will Housing Prices Remain Low?
However, some experts remain pessimistic about the future of housing market in Britain, with a considerable fall expected over the next quarter and widely low prices previewed in a year’s period. The spokesman added that consumers’ confidence towards housing industry has been undermined by constant concerns over the economic situation and gossips around the coming double-dip recession. The latest researches show that the UK economy has entered into its second recession period since the economic crisis at the beginning of this year. Thus, British consumers continue suffering from the Government’s severe measures targeted on reducing the budget deficit, below-inflation salary growth and higher costs of UK loans delivered by popular banks if compared with the previous years.
