Despite many expecting a rise of the interest rates at some point within the next year, households in Britain remain confident that house price growth and then housing market in general will remain healthy for the foreseeable future.
A sentiment report carried out by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Halifax has uncovered some interesting stats, with most people believing the housing market is going to continue being healthy despite an increase in the amount of homeowners who believe buying or selling will not be a good idea in a year’s time.
A Good Time to Buy?
The Halifax Housing Market Confidence Tracker report covered a wide variety of other issues and turned up some interesting results. As well as revealing that that the average householder in Britain remained optimistic about the housing market, the report also showed that there has been a 3% decrease in the amount of people who believe it will be an optimum time to buy a home in a year’s time, with the percentage of those surveyed believing it will not be a good time to buy in twelve months’ time rising from 44 to 47% over the course of the last quarter.
That figure actually falls to just 40% when only the London area is considered, as there is a much lower buying sentiment among homeowners in the capital and surrounding boroughs.
The proportion of homeowners who believe selling will not be a good idea in the next twelve months rose from 41% in the second quarter to 48% in the third quarter. However, despite clearly growing concern about the optimum time to buy or sell a home, the general outlook most homeowners have for the UK housing market is still very positive.
Interest Rates Expected to Rise
During the last report, compiling survey data up to and including 2015’s second quarter, the percentage of householders who believed mortgage interest rates were set to rise within the coming year was a relatively low 48%, but the third quarter has seen that percentage rise by 10%. There is also an increase in the amount of people expecting the interest rates on savings to rise as well, with 35% now predicting it to happen within the coming twelve months. That’s an increase of 9% on the previous quarter’s figures.
It’ll certainly be interesting to compare the Halifax sentiment report for the next and final quarter of 2015 to the figures reported for the recent third quarter, but it’s definitely a good sign that the housing market is in good shape when certain negative aspects such as rising interest rates can emerge on the horizon without causing too much panic.
