Although it's raining and miserable as I write this today, there are snowdrops down our lane! Now although I am not really used to giving either weather reports or gardening tips, this is significant because it means that SPRING is coming!!
And true to form yesterday I found myself on the internet looking at property web sites - spotting those that were undervalued in comparison to others - looking at the photos of those properties ‘that need modernisation' in the estate agents parlance, to see if my normal ‘buff and fluff' will do or whether more is needed and seeing how many properties are creeping onto the market. Now the ‘formal' statistics and evidence is below but as an investor my stomach and ‘urges' are telling me that spring is here and it's time to get going again. Now clearly there is something quite cellular about this activity and I know that most people get it, so without a doubt the property market is about to become more active.
So the statistics are:
- house prices rose by 0.6% in January
- prices have risen by 9.9% since April 2009 - which was the ‘low point'
- house prices in January were 3.6% higher on an annual basis
- mortgage figures for December were 45,897 new loans approved - double the number of December 2008 - whereas loans overall were up to 176,517 against 91,221 a year earlier
- house sales in England and Wales were 34% higher than a year earlier
- the proportion of household income needed to pay the mortgage for a new borrower has dropped from 48% of disposable income in the third quarter of 2007 to just 32% in the 4th quarter of 2009
All good news!
