ROOF Blog

The British housing market is improving at a faster rate than property prices across most of the rest of Europe, a report by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has found. House prices rose in only five European countries, including Britain, during 2009. But other countries continued to suffer a sharp market correction, with prices diving by up to 53%. RICS warned that countries with vulnerable economies would continue to suffer from price falls and depressed markets during 2010. Norway led the revival, with property prices in the country rising by 12% during 2009, followed by Finland at 8% and Sweden at 7%. Britain was the fourth best performing country, with the average cost of a home ending the year 1% higher than it started it, although house prices had risen by 10% from their lowest point in April.

Research from the Office for National Statistics shows that almost one in five graduates in their late twenties now live with their parents.

By contrast, only one in eight university graduates had failed to fly the nest by the same age 20 years ago.

Rising property prices, mounting student debts and the effects of recession on the job market have forced a wave of young people to move back into the family home at an age when they would normally be moving out.

The research suggests that young people in Britain are twice as likely to live with their parents in their late twenties than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe.

The Conservative Party would scrap home information packs (HIPs) ‘in a matter of weeks’ after coming to power, the Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps said yesterday.

The pledge follows claims by estate agents that the packs are impeding a housing market recovery, as potential sellers regard the typical cost of between £300 and £400 as another disincentive at a time when homeowners are already reluctant to move.

One of the reasons that property prices have risen since April is that the amount of stock on the market is low. Mr Shapps said: ‘House prices are rising because supply is restricted. HIPs have not helped.

‘The main priority is to scrap them. They are easy to suspend and there are emergency powers we can use to do so. This can happen very quickly. HIPs will be gone in a matter of weeks.’