Blend “not surprised” by SE house price drops
Specialist property lender Blend is “not surprised” by news of falling house prices in the South East of England, following the latest RICS market update.
RICS reported that house price growth is stalling across the UK, while prices are already declining in the South East and East Anglia.
Agents are now expecting prices to drop over the coming year, while buyers and sellers have been leaving the market “in droves”.
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Savills has forecasted a 10 per cent fall in the average UK house price next year, while Lloyds has predicted an eight per cent drop and Natwest has predicted seven per cent.
“Clearly we are in for a period of volatility and price corrections, although it is way too early to predict by how much or where more,” said Roxana Mohammadian-Molina, chief strategy officer at Blend.
“Not only will buyers and sellers be leaving the market in droves, but we will also see more stock come into the market over the next few months as professional and non-professional buy-to-let (BTL) landlords find that numbers no longer stack up and they have to offload all or part of their portfolio.
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“This will push prices down even more.”
Mohammadian-Molina said that she expects the property price decline to be particularly acute in areas where non-professional landlords have bought properties as an investment.
“This actually tended to happen a lot in the South East because say City people with a bit of cash wanted to invest in BTLs without going too far where they couldn’t manage the property,” she explained.
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