Introduction
Over the past five years or so, house prices in the UK have been constantly changing. At times, house prices being on a rapid increase and at other times falling. This leads to a possibility of negative house equity. As per Sloman and Garratt: “negative house equity is whereby the outstanding value of a mortgage is greater than the value of property against which it is secured.” (Text Book) Supply and demand are the main determinants of house prices, as the equilibrium of house prices will fall if demand rises and supply falls. An important characteristic of UK house prices identified from the UK house price inflation chart is the tendency of prices to rise over the long term, more quickly than incomes and consumer prices.
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Whereas, in 2008 to 2010 unemployment rates increased by around 3% in those three years (as shown in the UK unemployment rates graph) due to the recession. This meant that the demand for buying houses fell drastically and supply became elastic as people stopped buying as house prices became financially difficult to afford. This is because people’s incomes were falling or growing much slower giving them less confidence on whether they could afford such large mortgages. Statistics show that areas where unemployment is above the national average, incomes are more likely to be lower. This has a negative effect on consumers’ confidence to buy houses, implying an overall negative impact on house prices altogether.
Mortgages
Another demand factor affecting house prices is the cost and availability of mortgages. Interest rates affect homeowners’ ability to keep up with the mortgage repayments especially as the majority of the UK has variable mortgages. For this reason, from 2004 to 2008 when interest rates were rising, less people took out mortgages because for many, they were unaffordable and for others it was difficult to make repayments. Although, as per Sloman and Garratt, “when interest rates fall, the cost of servicing debts falls helping to fuel the demand for housing.” (Text Book) This supports the idea that when interest rates fall the demand for housing rises. As there are many different types of mortgages available (such as interest only and mortgages
House prices only go up right? This has been the one certainty of the Australian economy over the last 25 years.
America’s 2008 recession brought on “falling home prices and tight credit; state- and local-government cuts; higher oil prices that stood in the way of economic growth (“Back from the,” 2012). The price of homes dropped significantly pushing the equilibrium price down resulting in a shortage and an increased demand for houses at lower rates. When this occurs, suppliers are motivated to start producing fewer homes until a new market equilibrium price and quantity are achieved. After America’s recovery in 2009, suppliers slowly began to produce more homes and since that time, house prices have gradually increased (“Back from the,” 2012).
Secondly, in the past few years, household debt has increased rapidly. On one hand, it has deep influence on each Australian. With one dollar earned, one Australian is now in debt for two dollars. Australia’s debt for property is just lower than Switzerland in the whole world and doubles as much as America. Compared with the increase of house debt, salaries of Australians have remained steady, which means people’s capacity to repay debt hasn’t improved. Australians have been recorded low wage growth. From January to March 2017 wages grew just 0.5 percent. Over the previous year, wages grew a total of 1.9 percent. From 2011-2016 wages grew just 13 percent (Anderson 2017). Considering price to income ration index, housing affordability in Australia has broadly declined in the past few years. Nevertheless, it’s very easy for anyone to get loans from the bank. People don’t need strict assessment of credit to get loans and the government has some policy like first home owners scheme to encourage house loans. As the interest rate is at the lowest point in history, any boost of the interest rate would cause hundreds of thousands of households under mortgage depress. In addition, the ease to get loans make more house demand, which eventually make the price going up. If people can only use their incomes to buy properties, the demand would definitely not as high as nowadays. The American house crash
Meanwhile, yearly house price inflation rates in the top 20 cities are running in line with the national trend. The cities with the highest rates of increase are Seattle (+12%), Portland (+10%) and Dallas (+9%). Lower tier property prices appear to be more volatile than their high end counterparts in both Seattle and Portland. Meanwhile, the three cities with the lowest rates of house price inflation are New York (+3%), Washington (+4%) and Cleveland (+5%). Furthermore, rising house prices appear to be having an adverse impact on affordability. According to the National Association of Realtors, rising prices are offsetting higher disposable incomes and stable mortgage rates, and affordability has consequently been declining since January 2015. Partly driving the increase in prices is a lack of available supply of existing single family homes for sale. The number of months’ of unsold inventory was just below 4 in March and availability has been gradually falling since 2014. Additionally, there is a relatively tight supply situation for new single family homes for sale, which is also helping to support prices.
Despite slow household growth in the last decade, there are several factors that indicate the housing market is set to rebound. The economy has seen a current increase in the number of people who are renting living spaces, whether they be apartment or homes (Searcey, 2015). As there continues to be a higher demand for rentals, especially in heavily populated cities, the rent pricing will increase. Justifying high rent prices, when comparable to purchasing a home, will be difficult to do. According to the National Association of Realtors, a large portion of Americans are allocating a large share of their income for housing. Economists predict that home buyers will continue to rise as long as the economy
The housing crisis of 2008 can trace its origins back to the stock market trends of the mid- to late 90 's. During a period of extended growth in the stock market, increased individual wealth among investors led to generalized increases in spending, including in the housing market. With more disposable income in the pockets of consumers, the demand for housing increased in the late 90 's. Due to the fact that homes are large projects and their construction takes a large amount of time, the supply of homes in the market is inelastic on the short term. Because of the fixed supply of homes, as per the law of supply, which
According to Loungani, (2010) “Robert Shiller is well known for predicting the U.S. stock market crash of 2000–01. In 2003, he warned that U.S. house prices too contained a “bubble”; that is, they had risen far beyond what was warranted by fundamental driving forces such as income growth, interest rates, demographic change, and building costs.” (pg. 16) This is a clear example of how macroeconomic volatility affects the housing industry as well as other industries that feed off of the housing industry such as construction.
For example, in May, June, and July there have been rising home prices combined with rising mortgage rates. This along with the fact that most jobs being created by employers are part-time low-wage jobs tends to indicate that there could be trouble in the ability of home buyers to afford to take out a mortgage for the purchase of a new home.
In this essay we will be discussing the social, political and economic changes that have increased housing debt within the UK in the last 30 years and recent years, to what extent has the debt difficulty caused to some families.
In 1999 the market was relatively stable and there were equal amounts of buying and selling of property. However, the market began to improve and the housing market was going up in value. People began listing their homes in the new market in order to make the most profit. The market was in a steady increase from 1999 to 2006. Although, in 2006 the market reached its peak and began to crash. The rapid fall is shown between the time frame of 2006- 2008 and culminates in 2009 when the market crashed. The prices of homes drastically decreased so people no longer wanted to sell but because of bad loans people defaulted on their mortgages and had no choice but facing foreclosure. No one wanted to sell their homes since homes were overpriced and no one wanted to buy because of the problems with the
The housing crisis in the late 2000’s was created in part from subprime loans that lenders gave to individuals that did not have to provide proof of income that they could afford the house. This was a disaster likely to repeat itself. If a person is hoping to buy a home, they will buy whatever the lender allows them to purchase even though it could be a financial stretch. Lenders, builders, sellers, appraisers, buyers, owners, and governmental policy makers are all still gambling with the economic future of both their buyers and the American economy as a whole.
Since mortgages form a significant portion of this market, the implication is an increase in money supply for mortgages and therefore a lowering of interest rates. This means that buyers can access cheaper funds to finance their home purchase.
The increasing homeownership rate in the United States is a worthwhile policy goal. The housing economy creates jobs for American citizens as well as brings down the competitive qualities to purchasing a home allowing more middleclass citizens to spend money on houses. In doing so this drives the overall economy up in the United States.
Declining price attract people with the easy loan facilities of their banks. And banks are ready with very high risk loans. This excess supply of home inventory placed significant downward pressure on prices. As prices declined, more homeowners were at risk of default and foreclosure. According to the S&P/Case-Shiller price index, by November 2007, average U.S. housing prices had fallen approximately 8% from their Q2 2006 peak and by May 2008 they had fallen 18.4%. The price decline in December 2007 versus the year-ago period was 10.4% and for May 2008 it was 15.8%. Housing prices are expected to continue declining until this inventory of surplus homes (excess supply) is reduced to more typical levels.
-London became the most expensive city in the world instead of Hong Kong for firms to locate labors. Moreover, its house prices are going up rapidly especially in the last year the prices have been increased by 18.4 percent. Due to that London became the priciest city in the world to live and work. Due to the large amount of people who want to elaborate in United Kingdom instead of other countries like Canada. United Kingdom became the second attractive location in in the world after United States by 37 percent. This could be one of the main factors behind increasing in property prices. High demand on buying or renting houses to live, in contrast the city has shortage of houses, as a result of that prices will increase (Williams, 2015).