After a stronger start to the year, recent activity in the property market has been marked by uncertainty as the market seemed to pause.

If the mood in the market continues to feel unsettled it is not helped by the recent Government austerity measures. One obvious consequence of tax increases and employment cuts has been a slump in house purchases. This atmosphere of uncertainty and apprehension has fed an increasingly acute need in the public for information. People toying with the idea of buying or selling a house are keen to do their research. However, the plethora of available and conflicting indices have not served to deliver concrete answers. Additionally, Land Registry reports from Government and other sources designed to accurately represent market activity can be out of date as soon as they are published because of the time dalay in reporting. House price indices from banks such as Halifax and Nationwide reflect their business areas and cannot always give a compelte picture. Therefore, when researching the available information it’s wise to take in a variety of sources and recognise the motivation and possible bias of any particular source in order to get a more full picture.

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