Will The Property Market Improve By End 2008?

Below, I’ve listed property market headlines from June 27 until July 2008. The next time I publish another headline list will be around the end of the year. I don’t set any expectation. I just want to see if the market improves or not. Unfortunately one of the article quotes: “SLUMP COULD GET WORSE - Hit by the global credit crunch, lenders have toughened up borrowing conditions, demanding as much as 25 percent of a home’s value as a deposit before making any new loans — until relatively recently 100 percent loans were commonplace“. Read the rest of the headlines and follow the links for more information.

But the point is this:

• If you cannot put 25% down as deposit then rent now buy later, consider becoming a tenant buyer.
• If you cannot accept 25% price reduction off the value of your house then let now sell later, consider becoming a landlord seller.

UK Property market - housing crisis headlines

July 10 - Builders feel pain as house prices fall
July 9 - Housebuilders have cut nearly 4,000 jobs in the past 10 days, with some shedding 40 percent of workers to cope with the deepening crisis in the housing market. Bovis cuts 400 jobs and Redrow cuts 350 jobs. Bovis CEO says the downturn has gathered pace in the past few weeks and feels “an awful lot worse” than the last major correction in the early 1990s.

July 8 - Persimmon cuts 1,100 jobs.

July 4 - Barratt Developments cuts 1,000 jobs.

July 2 - Taylor Wimpey says it fails to raise up to 500 million pounds in new cash.

June 30 - Taylor Wimpey says it will write down the value of its land holdings by 660 million pounds and axe about 1,000 jobs.

May to June - Housebuilder shares fall almost daily as investors flee the sector.

April 30 - Nationwide Building Society says its April house prices index was down 1.0 percent year-on-year, the first annual fall since March 1996. Days later, Halifax says April house prices, as measured by it, were down 0.9 percent year-on-year for the first annual fall since February 1996.

April 24 - Persimmon, Britain’s biggest housebuilder by market value and No.3 by homes built, says the housing market has deteriorated rapidly since Easter.

April 8 - Halifax says house prices fell 2.5 percent in March.

March 6 - Taylor Wimpey, Britain’s biggest housebuilder by volume, says its order book is down 19 percent year-on-year and suspends a 500 million pound share buyback.

February 17 - Northern Rock is nationalised.

November 8 2007 - Halifax, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, says house prices fell for the second month in a row in October, the first back-to-back monthly falls in two years.

November 6 - Bovis Homes says global financial turmoil is hitting the housing market, effectively telling analysts to trim their profit forecasts. Other housebuilders tell a similar story in later weeks.

September - A run on savings at Northern Rock results in the government agreeing to guarantee all existing deposits.

August - “Credit crunch” starts appearing in headlines.

June 27 - Mortgage bank Northern Rock cuts its 2007 profit forecast, blaming a rise in funding costs in financial markets.