Residential conveyancing news: House prices will fall despite mortgage approvals boost

Posted 05/01/2011

Experts have said that the average house price in the UK will drop over the course of 2011, despite recent figures suggesting an improvement in the mortgage market.

Property owners looking to sell may want to seek residential conveyancing solicitors as many economists are predicting a modest decline in the housing market over the next 12 months.

This is in spite of Bank of England statistics which show that there were 48,000 home loans approved in November 2010, an improvement on October’s figure of 47,315, which means that more people could be looking to buy.

UBS economist Amit Kara said of the approvals: “This is slightly better than expected but these are very low levels suggesting the mortgage market has a long way to go before we can consider it healthy.”

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors recently predicted that house prices will drop by two per cent in 2011, but could fall as much as five per cent if the UK suffers a double-dip recession.