Falling house prices - disaster or opportunity?

by Gill Montia

House sales may have ground to a halt, with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reporting that transactions are at a thirty-year low, but canny homeowners are nevertheless planning to take advantage of the market.
Research from Abbey Mortgages indicates that over two million homeowners see falling property prices as an opportunity to increase their assets in the long-term.
According to the lender’s recent survey, around 1.2 million Britons hope to trade up to a larger property that can be bought at a bargain price during the next 12 months.
Meanwhile 827,000 homeowners are prepared to sell before the market bottoms out and move into rented accommodation, buying again before prices begin to rise.
Around 1.1 million property owners hope to downsize and ride out the credit crisis and economic downturn with additional liquid assets.
Twelve per cent of those questioned had not yet adopted a definite strategy and were waiting to see the direction taken by property prices.
The remaining 67% of homeowners surveyed were content to stay put for the next 12 months, although 39% of this group were planning home improvements aimed at increasing space, their property’s value, or hopefully both.
Those determined to buy a new home in the coming year are prepared to wait 7.5 months on average, before making an offer.
Discuss this in the Finance Markets forums
Story link: Falling house prices - disaster or opportunity?
Financial Services:
Related financial stories to: Falling house prices - disaster or opportunity?:
- Sale-and-rent-back a disaster waiting to happen
- BP returns to profit following disastrous oil leak
- Official figures put house prices down an annual 10.2%
- UK inflation falls sharply
- Auction prices indicate further house price falls
- BP continues with asset disposal to fund clean-up operation
- US house prices rise, consumer confidence up
- Nationwide HPI records property prices falling more quickly
- Property inflation forecasts give hope to first-time buyers
- BP facing lawsuit over Gulf of Mexico disaster
Next: April mortgage lending stages slight recovery »
Visited 1866 times, 1 so far today
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Tags: advantage, falling, homeowners, market, sell