BUINESS STATISTICS

Business Statistics

Business Statistics

Introduction

Over the last decade and a half the UK's housing market has generated a large amount of discussion. Between 1998 and 2007 house prices rose dramatically, generating large increases in equity for existing homeowners, but also making homeownership increasingly unaffordable for a large segment of the population. According to the official figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the average UK house price in the first quarter of 1998 was £78,469. At the peak of the market in the third quarter of 2007 the average price was £219,865 - nearly three times higher and consistent with growth of approximately 11% each year.

With the onset of the financial crisis and recession in late 2008, house prices recorded significant falls. The ONS average price fell back to £190,930, representing a 13.2% drop from the peak. However, the fall in prices was less than many had feared and during 2010 house prices rallied and recovered much of these losses. For the last two years though house price growth has flat lined as the UK economy moved back into recession. Latest ONS figures show that the UK average house price was £210,599 in the second quarter of 2012, still 4% below the pre-recession peak.

SECTION A

House prices from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website

Graph 1 shows fairly similar pattern in the UK all dwellings index i.e. particularly from Jan 2010 onwards to Jan 2013. There was a significant decline in the index prices between the mid 2008 till the mid of 2009, in fact reached to the lowest ever index prices in March 2009. No significant variation other than this period has been observed.

Graph 1: UK all dwellings index

Graph 2 determines a significant difference in the house prices in UK and other country/region i.e. Northern Island, North East, Wales and North East. UK housing prices have almost reached close to £250,000 whereas the other 4 regions didn't even come close to the £175,000 mark. The inter price comparison between the regions is not significantly higher i.e. remain close £150,000. Thus, from the graph we can clearly identify the significant increase in the housing prices in UK in Feb, 2013.

Graph 2: Average house prices in January 2013 in the UK

Section B

Land Registry House Price Index data

Table 1: Avg. price by property type

(England and Wales)

Feb-13

Feb-12

Difference

Detached

£254,137

£254,650

-0.20%

Semi-detached

£154,420

£153,323

0.70%

Terraced

£123,567

£121,895

1.40%

Flat/maisonette

£153,687

£150,417

2.20%

All

£162,606

£160,938

1.00%

Differences in the property type of the houses in UK does not seem to ...