Friday, September 10, 2010

U.K. Home Prices: Halifax and Nationwide August 2010

The latest release of the two most prominent home price indices for the United Kingdom are signaling that the up-trend seen in U.K. home prices may be drawing to a close.

The “Nationwide” series, indicated that U.K. home prices declined 1.66% since July remaining just 3.93% above the level seen last year while the “Halifax” series declined 0.59% since July remaining just 3.26% above the level seen last year.

Both indices are similar to our own S&P/Case-Shiller data series in that they both implement a methodology that seeks to standardize the quality homes included as source data and track the price changes occurring between sales instead of simply tracking the distorted average or median sales price.

The following chart (click for full-screen dynamic chart) show the price movement since 1991 to each index.