In the news this week there has been a lot of talk about property prices around the UK. Some are rising, mainly London, but most seem to be declining still.
Amongst those that have seen declining prices is Scotland. The Scottish property market has seen prices declining over the past 12 months on the whole. However this has been calculated off the back of a three month period in the summer where prices rose by a total of 1.5%. October put a stop to this however as prices then dropped by 0.1%. Despite the summer “bounce”, as it’s been called, the Scottish property market has seen prices fall by 1.4% in the 12 month period from November 2010 to November 2011.
House Price Index
This has all been documented in the LSL Acadametrics house price index.
The areas in Scotland which have seen the highest numbers of sales within the analysed time period was, unsurprisingly Glasgow, Edinburgh and Fife. The index revealed that property prices in November 2010 stood at £148,339, whereas by the end of November 2011 they had declined to £147,448.
LSL have also been explaining that their particular index is the only one that has taken into account every property transaction that took place within the twelve month period in Scotland.
Eviction Threats
This news about Scottish house prices has come in the same week as the news that thousands living in London could be facing eviction by their landlords or mortgage lenders during this Christmas period.
This has been put down to the fact that unemployment is at its highest since 1996 at 8.3%.
Homelessness charity, Shelter, has been explaining that the research that was carried out has been rather alarming, and Campbell Robb, the Chief Executive of the charity has been commenting: “As Christmas approaches, this research paints a frightening picture of thousands of families living every day with the fear of losing their home hanging over their heads. It’s sobering to see that so many communities are blighted by the risk of eviction.”
There were 12 local authorities in London boroughs that had the highest risk rates. Whilst a decent landlord insurance quote would indeed help landlords with rent arrears, it will be a very stressful situation for any landlord whose tenants are unable to afford the rent.
This is a rather grave issue and one that needs to be addressed quickly. It would truly be awful for any family or individual to lose their home at any time of the year, but especially at Christmas! A time that is traditionally charitable and giving.