Confidence that asking prices will be higher next year has increased to 29 per cent among respondents to a survey by Rightmove.
The Consumer Confidence Survey of more than 33,000 home-movers found that optimism that the market is recovering is up 7 per cent on last year.
Despite this, overall opinion remains divided; while 26 per cent expect average prices to be lower and 29 per cent expect prices to be higher in a year’s time, 41 per cent expect prices to be about the same.
The improvement in the mortgage environment has been cited as the reason for the upward expectation.
Miles Shipside, director and housing market analyst at Rightmove, comments: “Those predicting a pick-up over the next 12 months will no doubt have hopes that the Funding for Lending government scheme will provide the seed-corn that will encourage more lenders to scatter more mortgage products onto the volume-barren housing landscape.
“The mixed bag of local market conditions however, coupled with this patchy picture of sentiment, does nothing to suggest that an overall housing market recovery is looming on the horizon, despite the wider economy officially emerging from the double-dip recession.”
Rightmove’s research has also shown that more than one in five home-owners who bought in the six years from 2007 to 2012 believe that their property is now worth less than they paid for it.
However, the ‘loss’ is most acute for those who bought in 2007 when prices peaked and high loan-to-value mortgages were still commonplace.
Nearly half of home-owners (49%) who bought in 2007 believe that their home has fallen in value, limiting their capacity to trade-up in a market driven by equity.
17% of those 2007-2012 buyers who believe their property has declined in value since purchase also state that they are currently in negative equity, believing their outstanding mortgage balance to be higher than the current value of their property. This rises to 21% amongst those who bought in the peak year of 2007.
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