Latests NewsRics comments on latest house pricesDespite recent optimism that house prices are starting to pick up again, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has warned that the immediate future of the UK property market is still far from prosperous. Rics comments on prices to date. The comments come on the back of new data released by the Halifax, which show that house prices suffered an average decline of 0.5 per-cent over the course of June. While this comes on the back of a 2.6 per-cent rise in May and has helped to ease the annual rate of decline from 16.3 to 15 per-cent, some experts are still reluctant to declare that the worst is over for the housing market. "The combination of further job losses plus a continuing lack of mortgage finance remain major concerns for the market." Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at Rics, said: "The [Halifax figures] provides a clear reminder that despite the better news flow emerging from the housing market it is far from clear that prices have reached bottom and may decline further. These latest property price figures arrive shortly after Nationwide reported that the cost of a typical home in the UK rose for the third time in three months in June, bringing the total market increase since February to five percent. |
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