There we go with another set of gloomy news for the property market! It is indeed a challenging time to be an estate agent, although this will bring for sure innovation and more creative ways of marketing property for the future.
Well, let's go to the numbers...
New figures from Hometrack reveal that the average cost of a home dropped by 0.4% during September to £157,600, against the background of a mortgage famine and falling confidence. The most resilient areas of London and the South East have also seen property price falls over last month.
The figures also show the number of buyers looking for a property fell by 2.9% in September- the third month in a row that has seen a reduction.
Richard Donnell director of research at Hometrack, said: "The market is now entering the second phase of the re-pricing process as a response to falls in both sales volumes and demand. Over the rest of the year and into early 2011, agents will start to focus on re-pricing the property on their books to a level where transactions volumes are maintained. Talk of a double dip, with the implication being that the market will see double digit house price falls, is over-done despite the weak outlook for demand. We expect a slowdown in the volume of homes coming to the market to limit the scale of absolute price falls over the next 12 months.
So don't panic just yet, this correction in prices is in a way, a healthy market reaction which will enable property prices to grow at a similar pace as the overall economy, but vendors will have to be realistic and adapt their selling prices to the current demand, as it is a buyer's market at the moment.
For those in despair, bank performance is expected to be good for 2010, and those chunky city bonuses should bring back some joy to the London property market next spring.
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