Now I hate to dampen spirits but two point swim to the fore of my furrowed brow.
1) Easter is the MAJOR highlight of the property selling/buying year. More property changes hand in Easter than at any other time. It is the July/August of the of the airline industry. It is the Boxing Day of the High Street retailers. If nothings moving at Easter then woe for the rest of the year. As such all reports of upturns, sales, increasing interest need to be taken in context.
2) Just like the stock market has little rallies all the way down the collapsing slope so does the housing market. In the early 1990s house prices took over 6 years to go from peak to trough but there weren't ever more than two consecutive quarters of decline for most of that period. Its a process of falls and slight recoveries, followed by steeper falls. Green shoots, false dawns - all part of the usual picture I'm afraid. Gross mortgage lending in Feb 2009 was still the dropping and still back in the 1950's. The number of sales (mostly of 45% discounted flats to bargain hunting landlords) is unimportant compared to the monthly gross lending figure. The huge Vested Interests in the property market will spin any pebble of positive data and they're good at it. After all, they were very convincing to most people that there couldn't possibly be a crash...
The property market is screwed, still going down and won't stop until we're 40% off.
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