The Nationwide Building Society has this morning published its UK House Price data for March 2012. The Nationwide tends to be the first of the two UK building societies (the other being the Halifax) to produce house price data each month, it is one of the information sources referenced by NAMA’s Long Term Economic Value Regulation and is the source for the UK Residential key market data at the top of this page.
The Nationwide says that the average price of a UK home is now GBP £163,327 (compared with GBP £162,712 in January 2012 and GBP £162,764 at the end of November 2009 – 30th November, 2009 is the Valuation date chosen by NAMA by reference to which it values the Current Market Values of assets underpinning NAMA loans). Prices in the UK are now 12.2% off the peak of GBP £186,044 in October 2007. Interestingly the average house price at the end of January 2012 being GBP £163,327 (or €195,372 at GBP 1 = EUR 1.196) is 23% above the €159,044 implied by applying the CSO February 2012 index to the PTSB/ESRI peak prices in Ireland. The average home in Northern Ireland in Q4, 2011 was worth €163,510, according to the University of Ulster/Bank of Ireland survey.
With the latest release from Nationwide, UK house prices have now risen 0.3% since 30th November, 2009, the date chosen by NAMA pursuant to the section 73 of the NAMA Act by reference to which Current Market Values of assets are valued. The NWL Index is now at 826 (21.1%) – because only an estimated 20% of NAMA property in the UK is residential and only 29% of NAMA’s property overall is in the UK, small changes in UK residential have a negligible impact on the index – meaning that average prices of NAMA property must increase by a weighted average of 21.1% for NAMA to breakeven on a gross basis.
The Nationwide also released its quarterly price series this morning which shows that during the last quarter only the North (of England) and Scotland saw price increases in Q1,2012. Other regions were flat or declined.London declined by 0.7% in the quarter whilst Wales and Northern Ireland were outlying performers with prices declining 3.1% and 2.1% respectively.London and the South East (of England) have performed best over the past 12 months however with 2.3% and 1.8% increases respectively. However given UK inflation is running at 3-4%, all regions are seeing real declines. The outlook is shaky to negative.
