House sales slump

Home >> Manchester News >> House sales slump


rss

House sales slump

Oct 23, 2008

By David Ottewell

THE devastating impact of the credit crunch on the region's housing market can be revealed for the first time today.

Figures obtained by the M.E.N. show the number of sales across Greater Manchester has HALVED in just one year.

City centre flats are by far the worst hit - with sales an eighth of what they were at their peak last year.

Prices are also plunging, with the average detached house in Manchester now changing hands for 30 per cent less than a year ago.

But experts say mortgages are so hard to come by that first-time buyers are still unable to take advantage of the drop in prices.

Across Greater Manchester, some 8,428 properties changed hands in the second quarter of 2008. That represents a 46.6 per cent drop on the same period last year, when the figure was 15,788. The fall-off was greatest in Manchester (56 per cent), Salford (48 per cent) and Rochdale (47 per cent).Tameside (37 per cent) and Oldham (38 per cent) have suffered the lowest percentage decrease in sales.

Andy Finch, partner in estate agents Knight Frank, said: "It's a very, very difficult market. We have had slumps in the market historically. The difference this time is the speed at which things changed.

"In the city centre, we have had a market which for a long time was led by investors and the access to funds for them is now probably even more restricted than for owner-occupiers. At the same time, a lot of developers simply can't afford to bring prices down any more."

Mr Finch warned the current crisis was likely to last for several more months, despite the Bank of England cutting interest rates by half a per cent.

He added: "It is very difficult to gauge, but I think it will be well into next year before we start to feel we are coming out the other side." The figures will fuel fears that the boom in Manchester flats, which saw the city-centre population rocket from 200 in the 1970s to 20,000 today, has ground to a halt.

Hundreds of prime apartments are currently on the market in some of the city's most exclusive locations. The latest data shows prices, while also slumping, have fallen at a slower rate than sales.

Manchester council officers say the average sale price of a flat was down 18 per cent in April-June 2008 compared to the same period in 2007. Detached houses were down 31 per cent, but terraced fell just two per cent. Earlier this year, the M.E.N. revealed how the number of empty homes in Manchester had soared to 15 per cent in the city centre. That figure fell slightly, to 14 per cent, in September.

As of last month, some 7,179 private-sector properties had been empty for six months or more - a rise of 1.5 per cent on last year.

The council blamed these `voids' on `buy-to-leave' speculators, who grab properties in the hope of making a killing on the market with no intention of letting them out.
Source: Manchester Evening News

Latest Articles