Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Majority of UK home owners expect property prices to keep rising in next six months

UK home owners remain very confident that property values will continue to rise over the second 
half of this year, but are concerned about mortgage availability, according to the latest sentiment survey.

New lending criteria following the introduction of the Mortgage Market Review in April means that 40% of home owner believe that getting a mortgage is now harder than it was three months ago, the latest Zoopla Housing Market Sentiment Survey has found.

Londoners are no longer the most confident about further house price growth but overall some 92% of home owners surveyed expect UK property prices to increase over the next six months, slightly down from a four year high of 95% earlier this year.

It is the first time in a long time that London home owners are not the most confident across the country about house price rises in their area. The South East, the South West, the East of England and the West Midlands have all overtaken the capital in terms of home owner confidence.

With London prices having moved up so far and fast, the proportion of homeowners in the capital who expect prices to rise over the next six months has fallen from 98% to 92% over the last three months.

And amongst the 7,810 homeowners surveyed by Zoopla, the average prediction for house price growth over the remainder of the year currently stands at 7.6%.

The Mortgage Market Review (MMR) and associated new lending rules have both slowed down the mortgage application process and made securing finance more difficult. Despite that, 79% of UK home owners plan to spend at least the same or more on home improvements over the next year compared to last year.

‘After months of consistent growth in the capital’s property market we are now seeing a slight increase in caution among London’s home owners. More broadly, securing a mortgage appears to be getting harder now that MMR has caused lenders to be more rigorous with their lending criteria and approval process,’ said Lawrence Hall of Zoopla.

Source: www.propertywire.com

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