Fionnuala Earley Quotations

There is a supportive environment for prices. Nationwide expects the market to remain fairly stable in the next year.

The cooling in prices in April was not unexpected given the surge in March. However, the underlying picture remains reasonably healthy as demand conditions have remained quite firm.

We think that it is far too early to say that the market has reached a turning point and that prices will continue to accelerate from here.

This will clearly hit consumers' pockets - and their state of mind.

While there is uncertainty about the economy at present we still expect the next move in interest rates will be down and that this is likely early in 2006. But while the market responded quite swiftly to the rate cut in August, we do not expect a cut to cause annual house price inflation to accelerate back up to levels seen in early 2005.

Estate agents have consistently reported increased buyer interest over the last few months, which should help to support the market going forward,

Estate agents are reporting increasing buyer interest and that buyers and sellers are reaching agreement on price more readily,

Rather than seeing a rapid and significant correction in house prices as predicted by some, we are more likely to see a continuing smooth slowdown as lower price inflation attracts more demand, and thus liquidity, into the market.

Our expectation is that house price growth will remain firmly in low single digits in 2006 as the economy recovers.

Affordability and overall debt levels will still have to adjust to more comfortable levels before we can expect any widespread increase in demand and thus prices,

November's data suggests that the market has settled back down to the pattern of small rises in some months and small falls in others, with prices overall growing only very slowly.

As we expected, the strong rebound in prices in October was temporary, driven by buyers postponing purchases until after the August base rate cut and the overall picture remains one of stability rather than acceleration,

It's come through a little bit more than we were expecting even two months ago. I don't think it can be sustainable at that level going forward. People are stretching themselves.

The continued pickup in mortgage approvals suggests that the market will strengthen further over the next few months.

The housing market got off to a strong start in 2006. This is a significant increase in price and confirms the strengthening trend we have seen since October.

The FTSE-100 grew by 16 percent in 2005, compared to housing market growth of 3 percent. But the FTSE still remains 10 percent below its 1999 level, whereas house prices are more than twice as high as than at the end of 1999.

The current background suggests that the market will continue to cool in a contained fashion, but it will be some time before we can expect prices and activity to return to the growth rates seen in the last two years.