Hips lead to property boom
June 18, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Mortgages
The introduction of Home Information Packs (Hips) has led to an increase in the number of properties on the market.
Property website Rightmove has revealed that the number of homes on the market swelled by ten per cent in June as homeowners scrambled to avoid the August 1st deadline.
The site says that around 200,000 new homes were put on the market in June, signalling the largest monthly stock rise for nearly three years.
Rightmove says that the increase is undoubtedly related to the introduction of Hips which will initially affect homes with four or more bedrooms.
“The rush to beat the impending Hips deadline appears to have attracted some poorly motivated sellers to the market,” commented Miles Shipside, commercial director at Rightmove.
“They are chancing their arm at some fairly bullish prices considering there is now a lot of property up for sale.
“Their main motivation will have been to save some money avoiding a Hip, rather than being realistic on price because they had seen a property they desperately wanted to buy,” he added.
Mr Shipside went on to point out that those who have put their home on the market in order to save cash by not getting a Hip may have actually cost themselves money.
He said that with the market currently flooded, many homeowners are being forced to drop the price of their home to make a sale.
