It appears that confidence in the housing market has declined to its lowest levels in 3 years with fears prices have become inflated and that interest rate rises will have a big impact on the market.


Throughout the country, the Halifax’s quarterly Housing Market Confidence tracker indicates those who believe the next 12 months is a good time to buy a house has dropped from 34% to 5%.

Those people in London and the South East were generally more negative about the outlook for the economy than any other region in the country however the Halifax saw a significant increase in the number of people saying the price of houses had become the biggest barrier to buying.


There is a glimmer of good news as whilst people believe this isn't the best time to be buying a house they also believe this is the best time to be selling a house, in fact the survey shows this being the best time to sell a house since the survey was begun in 2011.


Craig McKinlay, mortgages director at Halifax, said: “People believe that it’s a good time to sell but not buy, particularly in London and the South East where house price expectations are generally higher and buyers appear to be less inclined to rush into buying a property as we have seen over the past 12 months.”


It’s now more important than ever before to keep the confidence of buyers in the housing market in order to maintain the recovery. Although a cooling off could potentially be beneficial to the affordable housing sector which could be helpful overall to working towards the deficit in the number of houses.


As members of the construction industry, we should all be playing our part in creating confidence in the housing market, which is after all a lynchpin to our livelihood.