19
Jan
Optimistic sellers push house prices higher
A rise in asking prices for property for sale has been cited as "an
early indicator" that sellers are confident they can try to get
more for their houses in the 2010 market.
Rightmove's commercial director Miles Shipside said his
organisation was expecting its latest monthly price index to fall
for the third time in a row by around one per cent.
However, "the optimism of those early January sellers flipped it
around", leading to a rise of 0.4 per cent instead. The average
house price was recorded at £222,261, a 4.1 per cent increase
on 12 months ago.
Another key trend observed by Rightmove was that interest was high
among property buyers at the start of January, with the website
recording its busiest ever week between January 4th and 10th when
over 157 million pages were viewed.
This number was up 26 per cent compared with the first working week
of last year.