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Zoopla Housing Market Sentiment Survey Q3 – confidence up on last year

October 16, 2012 at 1:59 PM Lawrence Hall Leave a comment

Homeowners are more confident now about the outlook for the British property market than they were at this time last year, according to the latest Zoopla Housing Market Sentiment Survey.

Two thirds of homeowners expect British house prices to rise over next six months, with average homeowner predicting a 3.4% increase (4.7% increase in London). A possible explanation for this is late summer and early autumn are busy periods for the property market which can lead to a boost in homeowner confidence.

The fact that optimism is up over last year is a good sign, however, confidence levels remain well below the levels seen in late 2009 and early 2010.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of homeowners surveyed believe that house prices in their area will rise over the next six months, up from 59% at this time last year. Only one in five (21%) homeowners expect property prices to fall during the next six months, down from (26% last year.

And the level by which homeowners expect house prices to rise has also improved over last year with the average homeowner now predicting a 3.4% rise in their local property prices over the next six months, up from 2.7% last year. Curiously, homeowners remain more confident about the performance of their own homes (expecting them to rise by 3.8%), than those of their neighbours.

London’s homeowners are the most optimistic about the state of the British property market. Four in five (82%) owners in the capital believe prices will rise in their area over the next six months with average growth of 4.7% expected over this period. Owner in Northern Ireland are the least optimistic with just 53% expecting property prices to rise by March next year.

Methodology

• Zoopla invited registered users of Zoopla.co.uk to participate in this study.
• The survey was fielded from 24th to 30th September 2012.
• There were 7,117 total respondents of which 6,495 of these were homeowners. Statistics based on a sample of this size are accurate to within less than +/- 1.0% with 95% confidence, if the sample is drawn at random from the population it intends to represent.
• These respondents represent the perspective of the Zoopla.co.uk user community, and could be considered to represent the population of people interested in the UK residential property market.
• All statistics are based on the full sample unless otherwise noted.

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