London Calling:There are so many house price indices that it is difficult to get an accurate view of what is really happening in the UK market, says Angela Pertusini.
There are now so many house-price indices in the UK, run by everyone from the Land Registry to the mortgage lenders to private companies, who will plot every quiver in values within a specific postcode, that it is almost entirely impossible to work out what is happening.
The Land Registry, which records the price of every home sold in England and Wales, publishes its statistics in quarterly reviews several months after the event and - rather quaintly - excludes properties that sell for more than £1 million from its data.
Since London's Evening Standard claimed in July that average family house prices in the capital's most favoured suburbs such as Wimbledon Village, Hampstead and Notting Hill, have topped the £2 million mark this summer, you sense this is something of a gaping hole in the overview.
Many of the rest of the indices rely on information collated from mortgage applications so, once again, can be patchy as they exclude those homes where no mortgage has been required - come in, City Bonus Boys - or borrowing has been outside the UK - I'm looking at you, my Irish friends.
Other data companies give so much detail that a change of a few 10ths of a percentage point over six months gives a graph that looks like the tremors of a Richter 9 earthquake.
However, most observers agree that there has been a definite cooling off over the past quarter in the UK as interest rate rises have finally bitten.
Buyers have started to demand greater value and growth has slowed - and even reversed slightly in some pockets - across the nation.
While they paint a pretty bold picture of a bear market with buyers haggling hard, the actual change on the ground seems, erm, subtle. Selling prices fell from 95.7 per cent of asking prices in May to a not unhealthy 94.9 per cent in August, for example. The marketing period rose from 5.8 weeks to 6.6 weeks over the same time.
And even this slightly grey portrait of a country's housing market does not apply to London, whose Marie-Antoinette-ish attitude to prices has thrilled and appalled in just about equal measure. Prices here have risen by 16 per cent in the past year in the capital on average but by more than 30 per cent in areas such as Kensington.
Still, with bonus negotiation season upon us - right in the middle of the wobbliest stock exchange movements in five years - and "reality" filtering through to the rest of the country, can London remain immune for ever?
Certainly, there are those predicting a standstill for the capital in 2008 with Miles Shipside of the Rightmove website even declaring: "We've seen the back of the London boom."
The Home Information Packs (HIPs) debacle drags on. From September 10, all three-bedroom properties - as well as the current four-bedroom homes - must include a HIP when marketed. Now, we can all deride the pointless Energy Performance Certificate that the packs carry (which tells you a period house without insulation or double-glazing will be expensive to heat). But one element that did seem worthwhile was the local search which must be carried out by the buyer in order to discover whether there are, for example, any planning issues hanging over the property.
Until now, this same report, costing about £200, has been bought by each person making an offer regardless of whether there are 10 of them going to sealed bids.
Having one available to all seemed sensible. Except that some mortgage lenders, first and foremost the mighty HSBC, say that they will not accept HIP searches so borrowers will still have to commission their own. Also, there are reports that some local authorities are obstructing HIP providers from obtaining searches at all. It is absolutely baffling that Gordon Brown didn't quietly sweep this sorry mess away on taking over the prime ministerial reins - even stranger that he is apparently allowing them to be extended to all homes for sale by the new year.
Chelsea's mighty Stamford Bridge ground to be redeveloped? Certainly owner Roman Abramovich knows a thing or two about turning a buck and it's hard to think of a stadium less likely to pay its way than one set among the millionaire terraces of Fulham. He wouldn't have to go too far west to find some wasteland crying out for a bit of regeneration but has been, allegedly, spotted sniffing around industrial parks close to the river in Chelsea (some amazingly shabby and depressing given their environs) and speculation is rife that the Blues are moving.
This is denied vehemently by the club but, as this is standard policy for both football clubs and certain Russian plutocrats, I wouldn't dismiss the whispers just yet.
