Monday 18 July 2011

Pent up supply

For several years, the Vested Interests have been gleefully talking about "pent up demand" (which is merely the flip side of articifially restricted supply, of course) keeping house prices permanently high, and somehow or other, pushing these high prices up a little bit more every year in perpetuity.

Ahem. According to the latest report/survey by Rightmove:

Seven in 10 properties put on the market so far this year have yet to find a buyer. This has helped push the average number of homes registered with estate agents up to 78 - the highest ever for the time of year.

So many sellers are struggling to sell their homes partly because mortgage approvals are running at about half the rate they were before the financial crisis, while some buyers are staying away, fearing that prices have further to drop.


Cheered me up, anyway.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a "home" owner, glad to hear it.

Lola said...

Did you here the BBC's R4 Moneybox Special on Saturday? That would NOT have cheered you up, except for the blokey from housepricecash.co.uk who was excellent. The beeboid was crap as usual, as was Boulger, who isn't usually.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, I certainly did not, hence why I am still in such a good mood.

Potential buyer (one of these fine days) said...

"...while some buyers are staying away, fearing that prices have further to drop."

Surely that should be buyers staying away HOPING that prices reduce further?

James Higham said...

Fair indicator of the state of things to come in the economy, possibly after the third quarter.