New Buyers Offer Property Hope

The proportion of first-time buyers entering the housing market rose for the third month in a row in November, offering grounds for hope that things will pick up in 2009.

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) said 10.4% of all properties sold during the month were bought by first-time buyers, up from a low of just 8.3% in August.

The improvement offered a "glimmer of hope" among otherwise gloomy statistics as the property market suffered from its traditional seasonal downturn.

House prices continued to fall during November, while there was also a dip in both the number of sales agreed and the number of house hunters in the market.

The group said the Christmas slowdown meant that the full impact of recent interest rate cuts and Government announcements to help the housing market would not be felt until the New Year.

NAEA president Chris Brown said the figures were better than expected after "the most difficult year for the market in a very long time".

The average number of sales agreed per agent fell to six in November, down from seven during the previous month, although they remained above August's record low of five.

At the same time, the average number of house hunters agents had registered on their books dropped to 186, down from 196 in October, while the number of unsold properties per estate agent also dipped to 87, down from 98 the previous month.

But research carried out for the Building Societies Association (BSA) pointed to a brighter market in 2009.

The group found that 46% of people now thought it was a good time to buy a property, up from 34% in September and just 27% in July.

There is also a perception that mortgages are now more affordable, with just 37% of people worried about the affordability of monthly mortgage repayments, down from 70% in July.

However, uncertainty as to how deep recession will be is expected to put buyers off for the time being.

Source: Sky News