Removing HIPs Has Boosted Property Market, For Now

I’ve come across some interesting facts about how the removal of home information packs (HIPs) has been affecting the property market.

I thought that removing the cost and hassle of HIPs would encourage more people to test the market and place their property for sale, and this turns out to be correct. Apparently there was a 13.6% increase in the number of homes being marketed which is up by 89.4% on April 2009’s level.

It wasn’t just the number of new properties being marketed that increased in May. The number of houses actually sold increased during that month too – increasing by 8.6% compared to April and 17.0% up on May 2009.

I guess that it wasn’t just the abolition of HIPs that suddenly stimulated the property market. The excellent weather in May must have encouraged buyers and sellers and finally resolving the election must have removed some of the uncertainty from property market participants.

It will be interesting to see what happens to house prices from here as we now have the potential impact of large increases in capital gains tax on the horizon.

In my area there are still plenty of houses for sale that haven’t yet found buyers. There are also plenty of houses that are sold and then return to the market as the transaction falls through. In fact, I think the number of failed sales is increasing. Its still tough in the property market, that’s for sure.

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