RICS: HBOS June house price data

Commenting HBOS house price data, Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist said: "Data released by HBOS this morning shows that house prices fell by 0.5% in June. This drop stands in marked contrast to the figures published by the Nationwide Building Society last week which recorded a 0.9% gain. The latter series has been painting a more upbeat picture for a number of months with the result that it is now showing a year-on-year decline in house prices of just 9.3% compared with HBOS estimate of 15%. This is the largest gap between the two series since January 2001.

"The HBOS numbers do have a tendency to be a little more volatile that the Nationwide data. Nevertheless, the continuing weakness in the former series provides a timely reminder that despite the better newsflow emerging from the housing market it is far from clear that prices have bottomed. The combination of further job losses and a continuing lack of mortgage finance remain major headwinds for the market. The major support for the market, as clearly demonstrated in the RICS monthly housing survey, is the lack of new instructions to estate agents. This has led the best lead indicator of house prices, the RICS Sales to Stock ratio, to turn upwards in recent months."