14
Aug
The house price crash of 2007-2009 is over, CEBR declares
The house price crash is now effectively over, an economic
consultancy has declared, forecasting that property values will
grow between this autumn and the end of next year.
On the up: some experts say the house price crash is over and that
sales will pick up. The average UK house price will grow by 2pc
between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the end of 2010, according
to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
There is a good chance that they will rise even more quickly,
thanks to the unprecedented collapse in new homebuilding, it
added.
The prediction comes after Halifax reported that house prices
rose by 1.1pc in July the second rise in three months. The Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which predicted at the start of
the year that prices could fall by some 15pc, also said it now
thought that in fact home values could actually increase in
2009.
The CEBR said that prices are likely to fall by a further 3pc
throughout the remainder of 2009, which would take the total
peak-to-trough fall to around 24pc compared with the third quarter
of 2007.
However, it said that this was likely to be the full extent of
the slide in prices – a smaller total fall than many
economists had anticipated when the crash began.
Nonetheless, the recovery is likely to be extremely subdued, it
added.