There will be no “sustained” upturn until mortgages become more available, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). Meanwhile, PricewaterhouseCoopers has war-ned further price falls are expected in 2009 and 2010, according to BBC.
The government’s own house price survey reported property values fell in May.
There was some optimism among surveyors that prices would go up in the short term. Latest house price surveys suggest some stabilisation in the market, with the Nationwide Building Society suggesting that house prices have risen in three of the past four months, leaving them nearly six per cent higher than they were in February.
But PwC’s economic outlook said with mortgage levels subdued and unemployment looking likely to continue rising for some time, “average UK house prices are likely to fall further between 2009 and 2010”. “Despite some recent reports of rises, we are not out of the woods yet and buyers should take a long-term rather than a short-term view,” it said.
It said by 2020, even if there had been five years of strong growth, house prices could be lower, in real terms, than 2008 levels.
The Rics survey for June suggested that there was some short-term optimism – with more surveyors expecting property prices to rise than fall for the first time since May 2007. Some six per cent more chartered surveyors expected price increases than price falls – compared to 11 per cent more expecting falls during May’s survey.
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