Halifax Housing Market Confidence Tracker

House price expectations rise again

The latest Halifax Housing Market Confidence tracker has a record high House Price Outlook. The proportion of people that expect the average house price to rise less those who think it will fall, increased to +40 in June up from +33 in March and +15 a year ago.

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Other findings from the survey by Ipsos include:

• 52% expect the average house price to rise, 12% anticipate a fall. The equivalents are 53% and 10% among owner-occupiers (a House Price Outlook, HPO, of +43).
• Most expect modest price changes; 64% expect movement between +5% and - 5%. But a quarter, 24%, expect rises of 5% or more.
• Regionally, the HPO is as high as +69 in London (+40 overall), compared to +23 in the North West.
• Sentiment remains against selling; 30% think the next 12 months will be a good time to sell. Whilst this is an increase of nine percentage points since March, it remains lower than the 57% who think it will be a good time to buy.
• Just under one in four (23%) think it will be both a good time to buy and sell over the next 12 months – the highest we have recorded. This rises to 29% in London.
• Being able to raise enough deposit has now overtaken concerns about job security as the most commonly identified main barrier to property purchase (64% and 58%, respectively). 
• The majority of the public, and private renters, expect private rents to rise in 2013 (68% and 71%, respectively). In fact, 14% and 15% respectively expect private rents to rise a lot in the next 12 months.

Downloads

• Download the computer tables (PDF)
• Download the Infographic (PDF)

Technical Note

Ipsos interviewed 1,959 British adults aged 16+ face-to-face between 21-27 June 2013. Data has been weighted to the known population profile.