Property experts debate 2010 outlook
North Staffordshire estate agency Heywoods is urging buyers to take expert forecasts for house prices in 2010 with a pinch of salt, with predictions for the coming year varying significantly amongst leading property specialists.
The start of a new decade has opened the debate about the direction that the property market will take, after a surprising year in which prices defied predictions of a crash by maintaining steady growth during the second half of 2009.
Several leading agencies expect the current upward trend to continue throughout 2010. Hamptons International expects to see increases of between 3% and 5% and Chesterton Humberts predicts rises of around 2%.
By contrast some agencies remain bearish about the outlook for 2010 including Savills, which has predicted a 6.6% decline in prices.
Heywoods said that accurately predicting property prices had always proved difficult and that the steady recovery of 2009, after all the market pessimism at the start of the year, demonstrated exactly the case in point.
The company is unsurprised at the disparity between the forecasts, given the various factors affecting the market, including the shortage of available property, exceptionally low interest rates, a forthcoming general election, rising unemployment and the end of the stamp duty holiday.
It said that the best advice it could give to house buyers was to ignore the forecasts and simply base their decisions on their own domestic circumstances.