Advice Forum – Wealth Management Information

[originally posted Friday 2nd Jan, 2009]

© woodleywonderworks, flickr

Halifax, the UK’s largest mortgage lender, published its December 2008 House Price Index today.

Here’s the scoop, and it’s not pretty:

1) Seasonally adjusted UK House prices fell 2.2% in December alone
2) Over 2008, the decline was 16.2%

So the average home is worth £160k, the same as it was in August 2004.

On the upside, just, the index’s authors note that the market does show signs of stabilisation (see last week’s post).

For most people, their home and/or other properties represent a very large chunk of their assets. If this is true for you, shouldn’t you be thinking very hard about a financial review?

Interesting article from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors today.

In a nutshell, they predict that the decline in residential house prices has some way to go, and a further fall of 10-15% is likely.

At the same time, an RICS survey suggests that the volume of transactions may have bottomed out already, and we should see the volume of transactions start to increase.

Obviously, against the backdrop of the current UK economy, such assements should be considered riskier than would have been the case just 12 months ago.

Read original article here.