Industry groups and lenders reluctant to make house price forecasts
January 15, 2009 by admin
Filed under News, News-Mortgages
Each year many lenders and various industry groups tend to release forecasts relating to house price movement over the year to come. However, this year – which has been a particularly turbulent one in the housing sector – a number of lenders and agencies have said that they will not be making any forecasts in relation to house prices, and this is for a number of different reasons.
The Halifax and the Nationwide Building Society have been releasing these house price forecasts for years and these have been widely followed, but this year there will be no forecast from these lenders. The Halifax has said that it does not feel it appropriate to release a forecast given the takeover by Lloyds TSB.
An official from Halifax said: “HBOS will no longer exist next year so it’s been decided it’s not appropriate to make a forecast. We don’t know what Lloyds’ view is; they may not want to use our forecasts.”
Nationwide officials said that the markets were too difficult and volatile at present for predictions of any worth to be made. One official from the Nationwide said: “Things are changing so rapidly in the market, which makes it very difficult to forecast.”
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has recently released a forecast predicting that house prices will fall by a further 10 percent.
Another agency that has decided to forego the annual house price forecast is the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Again, officials from the CML have said that in the current climate and the volatile housing market there is no point in trying to forecast house prices, as this would be a futile process.
Tags: different reasons, institute of chartered surveyors, various industry groups, house price forecasts, hbos, lloyds tsb, mortgage lenders, takeover
