England

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<span style="line-height: 1.3em;">In the United Kingdom, Rightmove released it August 2015 House Price Index, which showed an average asking price for UK homes of <strong>£292,484</strong> and for London homes of </span><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"><strong>£606,826.</strong></span>
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<div>The result translated to the usual fall in August asking prices, with the index not being seasonally adjusted.</div>
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<div>However, Rightmove reported that the August decline of -0.8% was the smallest decline for the month of August in the eight years since before the credit crunch in 2007.</div>
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<div>Since 2007 the average August decline has been as great as -1.5%, with the decline having been more than 2% on three occasions in 2008, 2009 and 2014.</div>
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<div>A major driver of the supply-demand imbalance was identified as a significant 8% year-on-year fall in the number of sellers, which has become something of a vicious circle for UK property markets. </div>
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<div><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Transaction costs</span></strong></div>
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<div>According to data reported by Lloyds Bank only 151,000 many Britons moved house in the first half of 2015 compared to some 327,000 in the first half of 2009. </div>
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<div>Buyers reportedly have been concerned about the costs of moving as well as being unable to find somewhere which they want to buy.</div>
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<div>Stamp duty in the UK is levied on transactions above <span>£125,000 and therefore rising prices naturally leads to bracket creep and more buyers on the lower rungs of the ladder being captured in the taxable bracket.</span>
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<span><br>The stamp duty on UK purchases above </span><span>£575,000 is an absolutely ridiculous 10%. Properties bought for more than</span><span> </span><span>£1.5 million are whacked with an even more ridiculous top rate of 12%, though of course even this has not stopped the campaigning for ever more punitive taxes.</span>
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<div><span>If you do somehow decide to stay in Britain, the inheritance tax takes care of most of the rest at 40% rate, another ingenious tax, death duties having accounted for the demolition of an estimated one sixth of Britain's country homes in the 20th century. </span></div>
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<span>Unsurprisingly the prevailing crazy rates of stamp duty act as a particular disincentive to relocate within the South East of England where most transactions (69%) fall in to the 5% bracket for sales greater than </span><span>£</span><span>250,000. </span><span>In London the equivalent figure is even higher at 89%.</span>
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<div>We have heard similar reasonings given by buyers and vendors in Australia, whereby stamp duties have acted as a disincentive for homeowners to move, and have in turn also led towards more investors adopting a trusty "long term buy and hold" mentality.</div>
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<br><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Asking prices</span></strong>
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<div>The Rightmove House Price Index data from May 2003 to August 2015 is charted below for the United Kingdom and for London.</div>
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<div>UK average asking prices were up by +6.4% over the past year, while London prices were +9.7% higher.</div>
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<div><a href="/images/2015/08/18/RM1.jpg" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a></div>
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<div><img src="/images/2015/08/18/RM1.jpg" alt=""></div>
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<div><span>Given that the data is not seasonally adjusted, below is the same data for UK asking prices with a 12mMA trendline. </span></div>
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<div><a href="/images/2015/08/18/RM3.jpg" target="_blank"><span>Click to enlarge</span></a></div>
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<div><span><img src="/images/2015/08/18/RM3.jpg" alt=""></span></div>
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<span>Below is the data charted for London where asking prices appear to have consolidated above </span><span>£600,000 having come in above that threshold for the past three months.</span>
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<div><a href="/images/2015/08/18/RM2.jpg" target="_blank"><span>Click to enlarge</span></a></div>
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<div><span><img src="/images/2015/08/18/RM2.jpg" alt=""></span></div>
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<div>The strongest performing London Boroughs have included Greenwich where average asking prices have surged by 18% over the past year, spurred on the back of Crossrail activity. </div>
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<p><span><em>PETE WARGENT is the co-founder of <a href="https://allenwargent.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">AllenWargent</a> property buyers (London, Sydney) and a best-selling author and <a href="https://petewargent.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">blogger</a>.</em><br></span></p>
<p><em>His latest book is <a href="https://www.bigskypublishing.com.au/Books/General-Interest/Four-Green-Houses--and-a-Red-Hotel/1015/productview.aspx" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Four Green Houses and a Red Hotel</a>.</em></p>
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Strongest UK August market since 2007: Pete Wargent

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<p>Zoopla, the UK property listing website, has seen a record number of visits and leads in the last 12 months, despite continued uncertainty on Brexit.</p>
<p>Over the 12 months to the end of September, Zoopla Property Group (ZPG) said there were 648 million visits and 56 million leads.</p>
<p>Its property division saw revenue rise by 41% to £122.3 million, with the number of member agents jumping by 6% to 14,775 branches.</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dz9xllyip/image/fetch/c_scale,w_580,q_auto:good/https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/po.images/2017/11/30/zoopla.jpg" alt=""></p>
<p>Overall ZPG – whose business includes the comparison website uSwitch – saw revenue up 24%, to £244.5 million. However net debt increased to £191.5 million as a result of acquisitions. Statutory profit for the year was up 2% after acquisition costs and share-based payments.</p>
<p>Its acquisitions in the year included Hometrack, ExpertAgent and Ravensworth.</p>
<p>ZPG founder and CEO Alex Chesterman told Eye that the company were delighted to have delivered another year of record performance across the business.</p>
<p>“Our property division performed very well, driven by strong demand for our additional products, further migration of our software partners to cloud-based products and a continuation of returning portal partners.”</p>
<p>The company said it has grown its headcount by 20% and now employs 882 staff.</p>
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