House prices: can the glass ever be half full?
For non-believers of the advent of ‘green-shoots’, the mortgage market was given three clear indications in the last few days that the sector may be through the worst of the credit crunch.
The first came on Tuesday, when the CML announced that loans for house purchases had risen by 23 per cent in June, with 8,500 more loans granted than the previous month.
The CML went on to give further proof, stating the total number of house purchase loans (116,700 for those that were counting) represented a 50 per cent increase compared with the second quarter of 2008.
The number of loans for remortgages also increased by 13 per cent from May to 34,000 loans in June.
In addition, the latest UK housing survey from Rics, also published on Tuesday, showed optimism was rife, with 8 per cent more surveyors expecting house prices to rise rather than fall over the next three months.
It also marked the highest level of optimism among Rics members since April 2007.
Click here to read the rest of this blog - and to post your own comments.
