House price rises driven by larger properties
Author: Andy Bedford » Publish Date: 29 September 2009
Findaproperty.com’s new house price index suggests that house prices have remained stagnant at the bottom of the market while large rises in higher-value properties are propping up the major indices.
Their figures, collated from average asking prices on the website over the past month, show high-value properties climbing at 6.6% annually against a monthly rise of 0.3% for first-time buyer properties, leaving them still down -4.6% year on year.
That would suggest that difficult lending conditions for first-time buyers continue to drag down property prices as second times buyers struggle to find a buyer who can afford their property in the current market.
However, there is good news in the bag as average first-time buyer affordability has improved dramatically, fuelled by the price reduction.
Their figures for the affordability gap, or the average deposit required, show a drop to £55,700 or 1.74 times gross household income, against £71,000 or 2.8 times gross household income in January 2008.
Overall the indices showed a 0.2% rise over the August figures, leaving the average national asking price at £218,134.