Rightmove sees modest 2011 house price rise

Published 20th Jun 2011

Asking prices for houses in England and Wales are likely to rise overall in 2011, property website Rightmove forecast on Monday, scaling back earlier predictions for a steep fall in prices for the second half of the year.

Rightmove, which says its website is used to market almost 90 percent of homes for sale, predicted that house prices would finish the year with an annual gain of 2 percent, in contrast to its December forecast for a 2-5 percent fall.

Rightmove said asking prices rose 0.6 percent in June after a 1.3 percent rise in May, reaching an average of 240,394 pounds, their highest level since an all-time peak of 242,500 pounds struck in May 2008.

Prices are 8.1 percent higher than at the start of the year. Rightmove said that most of this gain was seasonal, but that a stronger labour market and fewer repossessions meant prices would probably fall less in the second half of 2011 than they did in late 2010.

"While we expect new sellers to have to drop their prices over the remainder of the year, we now believe that they will end 2011 slightly higher than they began it," Rightmove director Miles Shipside said.

Source: ' Reuters '

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