The RICS Housing Market Survey (aka House Price Balance) announced today was down 14% from January’s survey, but “the net price balance remains comfortably in positive territory” at 17%.

In plain English this means that 17% of surveyors responding to the survey reported increasing rather than declining prices

January had reported a fall in interest in the housing market and the February survey shows a return:

“There was a resumption of interest in the housing market following the fall that took place in January, which was due partly to the extreme weather conditions during that month and the reversion back to the previous stamp duty regime,” said Rics spokesman Jeremy Leaf.

New instructions were considerably higher at 15% as opposed -5% in January, and new buyer enquiries also rose to 7% (from -20%). Although this increase has yet to be translated into actual transactions, it is likely therefore that an increase in supply will slow the overall house price increase seen in 2009.

“The magnitude of the gains going forward is likely to continue to ease, reflecting the fact that new supply coming on to the market is starting to outstrip fresh demand.”

“Activity is expected to rise over the coming months after the recent lull with surveyors also anticipating that prices will continue to edge upwards,” said Mr Leaf.

For more information visit: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8555681.stm or www.rics.org/site/download_feed.aspx?fileID=6068&fileExtension=PDF (pdf file)

The Bank of England (BoE) decides to keep the Interest Rate at 0.5% and maintain the size of the asset puchase programme (Quantitative Easing).

Both moves where widely expected by financial analysts and the media.

The rate dropped down to the record low of 0.5% almost exactly 1 year ago on 5 March 2009 along with the introduction of the aset purchase scheme which was subsequently increased in value.

The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30am on Wednesday 17 March.

For more details view: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/news/2010/022.htm

Like with Nationwide HPI, down -1%, Halifax have shown a drop in House Prices in January compared to December, but an increase, 4.5%, over the whole year. Nationwide reported a 9.2% increase.

“House prices fell by 1.5% in February, the first decline since June 2009 following seven consecutive monthly increases. Despite this fall, the average price is 8.0% above the trough reached in April 2009.” Martin Ellis, housing economist.

Not surprisingly Martin Ellis attributes the reduction to the bad weather in early 2010 and the return of the lowest stamp duty threshold.

However he believes that “An increase in the number of properties available for sale has helped to reduce slightly the imbalance between supply and demand. ”

For more information visit: http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media1/research/halifax_hpi.asp

The Bank of England today released its ‘Lending to Individuals’ statistics. One of the key stats for property entrepreneurs is the ‘number of loan approvals for house purchase‘ aka ‘Mortgage Approvals’ which measure the number of new mortgages approved for home purchases.

The figures show a 17% reduction down from 58,223 to 48,198.

Although this is a sharp drop and is the lowest for eight months, it is still higher than a year ago by a massive 43%.

It is generally believe by experts that this larger reduction in approvals was due to the stamp duty holiday ending.

For more information visit: www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/li/2010/jan/index.htm

Nationwide House Price Index released today shows that house prices fell by -1% last month after recording a good rise in January.

“There is evidence from a range of indicators that the market may have lost momentum in early 2010 as the stamp duty holiday ended and house hunters were obstructed by the icy weather. New buyer enquiries dropped sharply in the New Year and there was also an associated drop in the number of new mortgages taken out by homebuyers in January.” Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist

However in comparison to this time last year the index is up a massive 9.2% the biggest year on year growth since returning to positive figures.

In all honesty it is not surprising to see a re-adjustment and the strong upward momentum seen in 2009 was unlikely to continue with continued national and global economic pressures.

For more information visit: http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/review.htm

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), who represent 94% of residential mortgage lending in the UK, announcement today for gross mortgage lending shows a massive drop in lending, down 32% in January against Decembers figures and still a large 21% fall against a year ago.

The CML believe that this can be in part attributed to the normal seasonal decline between December and January emphasised by the number of barrows trying to complete purchases before the end of the year in order to take advantage of lower stamp duties!

“The market certainly improved over the second half of last year and started 2010 in better shape than most would have predicted twelve months ago…. However, the Bank of England is likely to keep rates low which should continue to mitigate mortgage payment problems and help cushion borrowers from the worst of the recession.” CML economist Paul Samter

For more information visit: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8521565.stm or www.cml.org.uk/cml/media/press/2558

Although overall UK prices rose, Northern Ireland saw quite a large fall of -6%, with Wales making a small 1% rise with England (3%) and Scotland (3.8%) bringing up the overall figure.

Interestingly the average house price for first time buyers was up a massive 6.8% from a year ago, however in contrast the prices paid for new properties was actually lower at 1.5%.

The DCLG figures are released much later than lender and agent data, but in December the DCLG, Nationwide and Halifax all agreed to the ½ to 1% monthly increase. However the yearly increase varied much more with Nationwide reporting a massive 5.9% increase and Halifax a more reserved 1.1%

For more information visit: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/hpi122009

The Rightmove.co.uk House Price Index (HPI) released this week shows the increase in average house price to be 3.2%, up to £229,398. This is a jump from the very low growth of 0.4% in Januarys figures. It also represents a 6.1% increase over the past year.

According to rightmove.co.uk this has been a result of the lack of new sellers, allowing asking prices to be bumped up. They state that:

• Monthly rise reminiscent of boom-times; there has been no higher rise since April 2007 when we saw a 3.7% increase
• January sees record search activity on rightmove.co.uk, up 29% on same period last year
• The economic fundamentals cannot support further price increases of this magnitude

For more information visit: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/house-price-index/february-2010

In contrast buying and selling fell during January and the RICS survey respondents attributed this to the extreme weather conditions in January.

For more information visit: http://www.rics.org/housingmarketsurvey

Halifax House Price Index (HPI) for January 2010 has shown that house prices are up 0.6% on those from December 2009. Although this is the seventh consecutive monthly rise, it is the lowest in this period and lower than the 1.1% average.

In contrast the index is 3.6% up on last year which is the largest annual rate – measured by the average for the latest three months against the same period a year earlier – since February 2008.

“The marked reduction in interest rates over the past 15 months has, from a low base, boosted housing demand from those with a sufficient deposit to enter the market. Increased demand has combined with a low supply of properties available for sale to push up prices.

There are some signs that more people are putting their homes on the market. A further increase in the supply of property is possible over the coming months, which would help to.” Martin Ellis, housing economist

For more information visit www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media .