Are house prices falling? The Halifax house price index, published today, is finally showing a significant year on year fall: average prices are 2.6 per cent down in the 12 months to June. This is the biggest annual fall shown by the index in 12 years. But it is still hard to depict what is happening in the housing market as a bloodbath. The finer print shows that prices are actually up over the last quarter, by 0.3 per cent – with the 12 monthly figure pulled down by what happened by last autumn. As has happens so often in the housing market, predictions of deep gloom (or deep joy, if you are a frustrated first time buyer looking for an opportunity to enter the market) have been followed by nothing more than stagnation.
It is extraordinary in many ways that house prices are not falling further and faster. Mortgage
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