House prices will keep falling for another 3½ years
I forgot to blog this at the time, but there was an very interesting article in The Economist a few weeks ago.
It was about a recent statistical study of recessions that had come up with some interesting results.
- House prices tend to fall 36% from their peak, and this fall takes five years. These two figures are fairly uniform.
- Equity prices fall even more, by 56%, but this is faster: Only 3½ years. These figures are also rather uniform.
- Rises in unemployment, on the other hand, varies a lot from one recession to another, but on average it rises by 7% over almost five years.
- And finally, the fall in GDP is typically 9½% over two years, but again with large variations.
In Glasgow, house prices started falling in the autumn of 2007, so prices are likely to keep falling until 2012.
I was checking for sale prices in Glasgow on Friday. They were very interesting. Flats like yours in Garnethill were on the market at 20k less than you were asking, flats in the west end had fallen to Garnethill 2007 values but the houses on sale in Newton Mearns were on at the same as when we bought here. They hadn’t gone down or up…