Investment Property News

The property market is nearing the end of its long slide, and according to one of the country’s leading economic consultancies and respected commentators on the UK housing market, it will start to recover next year.

The Centre for Economic and Business Research believes the acute housing shortage will combine with pent-up demand from people who have deferred buying for fear prices will drop still further. Price will rise as a result. CEBR expects prices in the general property market to drop by a total of about 1.7 per cent over 2011 and begin to recover in 2012. They predict a 17 per cent rise by the end of 2015.

The latest figures from ARLA state that an undersupply of rental homes is threatening the balance of the UK rental market.

Research from the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) has revealed that 74% of members are reporting more registered prospective tenants than there were properties available in the second quarter of this year.

This is a massive increase from the 10% that stated the same two years ago and highlights the continuing trend of more demand than supply in regards to the lettings market in the UK.

Ian Potter, ARLA Operations Manager, commented: ‘To work towards a solution, the government needs to look seriously at ways to incentivize investment in the PRS (Private Rented Sector) to increase the number of properties available for rent’.