According to Halifax today the Uk House Prices have fallen by 1.3% in December from previous month, it meant that the average property ended the year 1.6% cheaper than at the beginning of 2010. but it was still less than the fall in the second half of 2008.

As interest rates will be held low according to industry experts and comments from the monetary policy, I dont see any major movements in the house prices in 2011. Perhaps to the exception of London and other major sought after cities there will be bigger movements but the rest of the uk will be less volatile. All this still relies heavily on the MPC decision on interest rates.

The right type of real estate is still commanding the right sort of price, but there are so many views out there from leading economists and estate agents saying that prices overall will fall!

Who to believe? Well if you just take a sample of people aroound you buying properties I would say most of them still struggle to get a decent mortgage as lenders are not being generous on the rates and its making it hard for borrowers to access the market. So the domino effect from this will be that stranded sellers will have to reduce poor quality properties again this year in order to sell. So overall it might make the prices fall!

To get a very good mortgage nowadays ,, you need to be very lucky!

Well the race for the lenders is constant as they want only the borrowers that do not pose any sort of risk as they got their hand burned in the previous 3 years.

So if you think that one lender is being particularly generous and understanding please pass on your comments here and potential borrowers can contact them.

PJ

By Daniel Pimlott

Published: July 30 2009 08:03 | Last updated: July 30 2009 08:03

House prices in the UK rose by 1.3 per cent in July, according to the latest figures from Nationwide, taking the rate of growth over the last three months to its highest level in more than two years and adding to signs that the housing market is bottoming out.

Prices rose for the third month in a row, the Nationwide index showed, following increases of 1 per cent in June and 1.3 per cent in May. The three-month-on-three-month rate of change reached 2.6 per cent, the highest since February 2007.

The Nationwide index has shown growth in four out of the last six months, and signs of stabilisation in the housing market are backed up by other surveys, although Nationwide has been the most positive. The Halifax index has shown intermittent growth this year, while the Land Registry index, which lags Halifax and Nationwide by several months, rose for the first time in almost 18 months in June.

For the first seven months of 2009 as a whole, prices rose by a cumulative 1.3 per cent, suggesting there is now a reasonable chance that prices could end the year slightly higher than where they started. Only a few months ago, such an outcome would have appeared unthinkable,” said Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s chief economist.

But many economists are sceptical that the run of good news on house prices will continue. Although mortgage approvals for homes have risen sharply, they remain below the levels that many think are consistent with rising prices. Furthermore the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors has said that although demand for housing has risen sharply, house prices appear to be being supported by a lack of supply as wary sellers keep their properties out of a depressed market. Finally, with unemployment expected to continue to rise, demand for house purchases may well ebb later in the year.

Mr Gahbauer said that the rise in prices came as pent up demand that had been held back during the worst of the crisis last year was reaching the market. “Although the resulting rise in transactions has not been that dramatic, it has been enough to produce an upward bounce in prices because it coincided with very low levels of supply on the market,” he said. “If prices continue to increase at the rate of the last three months, they would soon rise to levels that would be noticeably out of line with earnings, rents and other fundamental determinants of housing valuations… It is unlikely, therefore, that price increases can be sustained for long at the very strong rate observed over the last few months.”