LONDON (AFX) - UK's housing market is approaching a "turning point" as the
boost from previous rate cuts wears off and high prices begin to bite, warned
Nationwide, Britain's largest building society.
It said the winter "mini-boom", which has seen five successive months of
price rises, will fade before the summer.
"We're at a turning point. I think we are at the stage where affordability
constraints are biting -- and there are other things on the horizon that will
stop people splashing out: Higher utility bills, rising unemployment," Fionnula
Earley, Nationwide's chief economist, was quoted by the Observer newspaper as
saying.
She said Chancellor Gordon Brown's move in last week's Budget to raise the
stamp duty threshold by 5,000 stg to 125,000 stg will make little difference to
home buyers.
Nationwide has forecast house price growth of zero to 3 pct for 2006.
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