MPC member says housing market ‘is over the worst’

Posted 05/07/2009

A Bank of England official has stated that the UK housing market is over the worst after the decline over the last year.

Professor David Miles, a member of the monetary policy committee (MPC), said optimism regarding the property sector in the UK is higher now than it was a few months ago.

“My hunch is that we have seen most of the overall aggregate house price falls,” he commented.

However, Professor Miles told the Treasury Select Committee that any recovery in the sector would be fairly limited.

This means that people looking to make a property sale should not expect the value of their home to increase significantly in the event of an economic turnaround.

According to the latest figures from Nationwide, house prices in the UK rose by 0.9 per cent during June, which means values have risen in three of the last four months.

While chief economist Martin Gahbauer conceded that this trend is encouraging, he warned that factors such as rising levels could stand in the way of a sustained recovery.