House prices stage a smart comeback rally, indicates the Halifax review
Tumbling house prices have staged a smart comeback rally, sharply rebounding in December after consecutively going downhill for the previous three months. The latest Halifax review has finally brought some cheer to the turbulent property market. According to the nation’s biggest mortgage lender, average national house prices, computed on basis of its loans to homebuyers, have gone up by nearly 1.3 per cent in last month.
The relief rally helped reverse the slump in November prices as reflected in Halifax’s figures. The figures in October and September also pointed to declines of 0.7 per cent, and 0.6 per cent respectively.
The December bounce back could not have come at a better time. It left house prices slightly lower, by mere 0.8 per cent, over the final quarter of previous year. According to the review, home values in the final quarter of year 2007 were just 5.2 per cent higher than in the corresponding period of last year. That indicated a decline from the double-digit rate of increase witnessed during the autumn. House price inflation had then peaked at 11.4 per cent.
Halifax survey shows that British house prices have zoomed by whopping 182 per cent over the past decade or so - almost trebling from around £70,000 at the end of 1997.
However, some economists are disputing the Halifax figures. They are contrasting its report pointing to a rise in home values in December 2007 with the findings of Nationwide that prices actually fell by half a per cent in the month.
Even Halifax has suggested that the bounce back in prices need not be taken as a signal that imminent worries over the housing market outlook are totally unfounded.