Against all odds: housing market outlook

Over the last week, the property news has suddenly turned very negative. Hardly surprising given the general state of the economy and pending cuts.  However, some property pundits are reminding us that the property market has a mind of it's own. Britain's long running obsession with homeownership may just save the day...

Harvey Jones of lovemoney.com points out how whilst the rest of the economy has suffered with savings and investments taking a dive, the property market has defied logic.

Harvey Jones comments: "Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the credit crunch is the relatively mild impact it has had on the housing market. Prices did fall by around 16% as the UK tipped into recession, but forecasts of a 30% or 40% drop were well wide of the mark."

Over the past 6 months house prices have risen again. In some areas, prices almost hit pre-credit crisis levels. ludlowthompson estate agency saw house price rises of 15% and some property exceeded asking price. 

ludlowthompson, one of London's leading high street estate agents, is also trusting it's instincts. Stephen Ludlow comments: "At the worst of the credit crisis we switched our operations to lettings. 

"In the past few months, we've been reopening ludlowthompson sales departments because the demand is there and homeowners want to move. Whilst we are not doing huge levels of business we are selling enough houses to justify staffing up at our sales operations.

"Our June business figures show that buyer enquiries increased by 24% in June compared to May 2010. And our search engine traffic increased by 15%."

Harvey of lovemoney.com says that whilst all the signs are there for a property slump, he believes history has a habit of surprising us: "Given the resilience of the house prices so far, and the soft long-term outlook for interest rates, there is a good chance that the property market will continue to sail on, the HMS Invincible of the UK economy."