new surveys suggest uk home prices and retail sales are rising
News Posted On: 11 November 2009
Separate surveys published on Tuesday showed that house prices in England and Wales were rising at the fastest rate for almost 3 years, while retail sales had their best October in 7 years, growing at the fastest pace since April.
A Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors survey reported that 34% more surveyors saw price rises than falls in the three months to October easily beating market expectations of a positive reading of 28%. This was the highest value recorded since December 2006, before the credit crunch started, and is in line with mortgage lenders who have been property prices recovering strongly in recent months following up to a 20% drop last year.
Meanwhile a report from The British Retail Consortium stated that year on year sales rose by 3.8 percent in October, the biggest rise since April. Total sales including new floor space was 5.9 percent higher than a year ago, again the biggest rise since April. Taken together these figures painted the best picture for October since 2002. These figures stand in sharp contrast to the bearish prognoses most analysts had at the beginning of the year.
Marking the change in sentiment another survey, this time from the Times, showed Britons were more optimistic about the economy than at any time for the past 18 months.
However some analysts sounded a note of caution despite the good news.
"As we approach Christmas, optimism is certainly up," said Helen Dickenson, head of retail at KPMG.
"However, the longer-term outlook remains considerably more challenging given the economic backdrop, levels of unemployment, uncertainty regarding the impending VAT rise and the impact of future fiscal policy following next year's election."
The raft of numbers that has been released in the past few days does seem to support the government's expectation that UK growth should return by the end of the year. Trailing in the polls and with an election coming, Labour will therefore be relieved to see data showing the UK finally pulling out of its longest post-war recession.
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