Friday 8 February 2008

The UK housing crash is here; the numbers tell us so

Today's repossession data did not disappoint. As expected, the number hit an eight-year high. Last year, 27,100 homes were repossessed by lenders. This is 21 per cent higher than in 2006 and represents almost one home loan in four hundred.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice also had some bad news to deliver. During the final quarter of 2007, 35,662 mortgage possession orders were made through the courts in England and Wales; 2 per cent up on the previous quarter and 14 per cent higher than in the same period in 2006.

House prices are down almost five percent since July 2007, mortgage approvals are down 40 percent and now repossessions are up 21 percent. At least these numbers clear up one debate; the housing crash is definitely here.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Alice

The number is actually worse than those statistics suggest when you take into account the number of houses being bought and rented back to their former owners.

These owners would otherwise be forced into repossession, and when these are taken into account, the number is an even more crash-inducing 50,000!

Was there much of this distressed BMV going on last crash?

Best Regards,
Nick