'Province's house prices continue to fall'
HOUSE prices in Northern Ireland dipped by 2 per cent in the last quarter, according to a major property price survey.
The Halifax House Price Index reported that between July and September the average price of a home in the Province was 148,150, down from 151,107 in the previous three months.
The non-seasonally adjusted data is at odds with another major house price survey, from the Nationwide, which found that over the same period house prices rose by almost 10 per cent.
Jonathan Davis, a City of London financial planner who predicted the Northern Ireland house price crash at the height of the boom in 2007, said it was difficult to read too much into any one survey.
"In most of the UK there has been a spring and summer bounce in house prices, but it is unclear from these surveys exactly has been happening in Northern Ireland," he told the News Letter.
But Mr Davis said that recent rises across the UK have been based on low numbers of transactions, "which have been so low and hundreds of estate agent offices have closed down".
He added: "I believe that house prices will resume their decline next year, particularly after the election when taxes are expected to rise and public sector spending is expected to be slashed."
Mr Davis said that he believed house prices in the Province remained over-valued.
"Across Britain and Ireland, many people have been trying to talk up the property market," he said.
"But they cannot alter the fundamentals. In both Britain and Ireland, house prices are too high relative to incomes and lending restrictions.
"This is particularly so in Northern Ireland where average wages are below the UK average."
Nitesh Patel, housing economist at the Halifax, told the News Letter: "In Northern Ireland the prices rose substantially more than any other region in the UK over the last decade. What we have seen now is a contraction.
"The UK house price to incomes ratio is 4.48 and Northern Ireland is a bit above that.
"The long term average is around 4.0."
The Nationwide, when it reported the sudden 9.7% third quarter rise in Northern Ireland, pointed out that when house prices were looked at over the whole of the previous year, Northern Ireland had experienced "by far the largest peak-to-trough fall in prices across the regions".
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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