London (AFP)
Residential property prices recorded their worst decline in 11 years in the UK in May due to the coronavirus, according to a study released Tuesday.
This 1.7% decline over a month, the worst since February 2009, in the midst of a financial crisis, comes when house prices had reached a record in April, according to a study by the nationwide mutual bank.
It translates into an average drop of 4,000 pounds per property for an average price of 218,902 pounds.
"At the beginning of 2020, before the shock of the pandemic in the United Kingdom, the housing market registered a steady progression" but "activity slowed down considerably because of the measures put in place to control the spread (of the virus)", comments Robert Gardner, chief economist of Nationwide.
Data from the British Tax Service (HMRC) indicate a 53% year-on-year collapse in real estate transactions in April.
In addition, home loan agreements collapsed 80% in April compared with their February level, according to data from the Bank of England on Tuesday, to fall to 15,800, a record low since the start of the publication of these data in 1993.
Gardner said the medium-term outlook for the housing market remains very uncertain and will depend on the speed of recovery.
Jeremy Leaf, a London real estate agent quoted by the PA agency, describes the fall in prices in May as a "crash".
For him, "buyers and sellers are waiting to see who will draw first" and the market has not yet found its equilibrium post-Covid prices.
© 2020 AFP