Henry Pryor Says: Prices drop - Rightmove figures

Search: Latest house price figures

Rightmove are one of the bigger property portals and once a month they put out a press release about the state of the market.

There isn't exactly a shortage of property indices - mortgage lenders Halifax and Nationwide provide a monthly index based on the mortgages they arranged the previous month, the Land Registry tells us about the actual prices recorded when sales complete but these of course were sales agreed four or five months ago.

Rightmove tells us what has happened to asking prices quoted on their web site but these are not necessarily what the houses sell for. Just because someone asks "100,000 for their flat doesn't mean it's actually worth that much.

For the past six months since the Northern Rock ran out of money to lend, both the Halifax and Nationwide have told us that price have stopped rising and in many areas has started to fall back.

Rightmove said in November that average asking prices on their site had fallen by 0.7% which means that sellers were starting to get the message and were trying to be realistic with their asking prices. This week, Rightmove tells us that in January they fell a further 0.8% on top of a 3.2% fall in December. Three months on the trot!

If asking prices are falling today, we should expect the lenders indices to fall back in February and March as they lend less and the Land Registry index should fall in June and July to reflect these lower prices that are achieved. Make sense? Asking prices are lower so mortgages will be smaller because the total price that property sells for is smaller.

So, we know what the indices are telling us HAS happened but would it be more useful to know what MIGHT happen?

Between them, the Land Registry, Halifax and Nationwide tell us that annual house prices inflation has been about 7%. Rightmove's figures tell us that average asking prices have fallen by 4.6% in the past 3 months and as we have learned above, we should expect this fall to be echoed in the figures from the lenders next month and by the Land Registry in the summer.

City speculators and spread betters are expecting that the Halifax UK index will be about 6.5% lower by the end of June this year.

This time last year, one in five new mortgages was lent by the Northern Rock. Their average 'loan-to-value' was reported to be 95%. If values were to fall as predicted then negative equity - where the value of your home is worth less than you owe the bank will be a reality for many who bought in 2007.

Lenders like Alliance & Leicester and Britannia clearly have concerns as they have raised their minimum deposit requirement last week from 5% to 10%. Lenders are expecting prices to fall and they would like a little more insulation.