Consumer confidence in housing market recovery remains low

According to the latest Property Tracker Survey (June 2010) from the Buildings Society Association (BSA), just 45% of consumers who were surveyed think that now is a good time to buy a property. This is a drop of 4% on the results from March 2010’s Property Tracker Survey where 49% of consumers responded that they thought that now is a good time to buy a property.

The June 2010 Property Tracker Survey questioned consumers as to what they thought the new Government should do to promote home ownership in the UK housing market. The results demonstrated that there does not appear to be a single preferred solution from a consumer perspective, but clamping down on properties standing empty (36%), removing or reducing stamp duty (33%), increasing lending from banks or building societies (32%), help in saving a deposit (28%), and simplifying the home buying process (27%) were the recommendations with which consumers were in most agreement.

Paul Broadhead, Head of Mortgage Policy at the BSA, said:

“This rise in negative sentiment about whether now is a good time to buy property in the UK market could reflect wider concern about the state of the economy and the warnings the new coalition government has issued about the austerity measures that will have to be taken. 55% of people surveyed still consider job security a barrier to buying property, followed closely by the ability to save for a deposit, 53%.

“The Government has spoken of its support for the aspirations of people to become home owners, and our survey demonstrates that consumers believe there are a range of measures that the Government could now take to encourage wider accessibility to the UK home buying market. Whilst there is no one stand-out solution we would be happy to help the Government to investigate these problems, and last week the BSA published a summary of a roundtable discussion looking at improving the property buying process for the consumer.”