Kerrigans Estate Agency News.

Local house prices remain stable despite national dip.

Estate agents say Doncaster is well placed to ride out the housing market credit squeeze as national figures released this week showed another fall in property prices. The Halifax house price index revealed that prices fell nationally by 2.5 per cent last month, and it predicted a continuing modest decline for the rest of the year.

But in Yorkshire prices fell by 0.5 per cent and annual figures showed that prices were still marginally up by 0.1 per cent on last year.

Local estate agents say the biggest stumbling block at the moment is the difficulty buyers are experiencing in trying to secure a mortgage.

But they said Doncaster was in a strong position to ride out any slump in the market because of high employment and sound investment in the town.

Julian Binnie, from John B Robinson estate agents, said it was misleading to look at just one month's statistics and that there were still a lot of people buying and selling property.

He said that irresponsible lending by the financial institutions , when buyers were borrowing five or six times their income without worrying how it would be paid back, had led to the problems which now saw those same institutions restricting loans. But he said that strong employment meant the situation wasn't as bad as the housing crash of the early 1990s. He said: "A lot of the repossessions then weren't because people had overstretched themselves but because they had lost their job."

He said it was impossible to generalise about prices, even within Doncaster. Some areas might have a shortage of houses for sale and others have a lot on the market, so it came down to supply and demand.

He said: "We deal with everybody on an individual basis, because everybody's situation is different. Some people might reduce their price if they are in a hurry to sell, but others are prepared to wait.

"We've just sold a couple of houses at the full asking price."

The National Association of Estate Agents this week called again on the Bank of England to reduce interest rates to help to stabilise the housing market.

South Yorkshire NAEA spokesman Anthony Kerrigan, of Doncaster estate agents Kerrigans, said: "These are uncertain times and the biggest problem at the moment is the credit crunch. It used to be that people could borrow silly amounts but that has been pulled back and big lenders like the Halifax are now lending less, which is going to affect house prices."

But he said that Doncaster was in a strong position because of its good infrastructure, high employment and a lot of sensible and well thought out investment.

Alison Telford-Simms, residential sales manager at Barnsdales, also said a cut in interest rates was needed and that the reluctance of the big lenders to approve mortgages was contributing to an unstable market.

She said: "Prices are dropping but sellers expectations are more realistic now. Buyers can't get 100 per cent mortgages anymore and there is a reluctance to commit.

"We still have lots of buyers out there but we're finding that the houses which are selling are those which don't need much doing to them because, if buyers have stretched themselves to the maximum to secure a mortgage, they don't have the money to spend on decorating when they've moved in."

She said some homeowners might find themselves in negative equity because of secured loans taken out on their property when prices were at a high.

But she added that prices in Doncaster were still fairly reasonable which meant young people could still afford to buy something.

Date: April 08
Source: Doncaster Free Press