Landlords Wanted
Housing market activity had risen further, both in terms of enquiries and transactions.
Bank of England – Agents’ summary of business conditions – September 2013
Housing market
In the new-build market, improving conditions were partly ascribed to the effects of the Help to Buy scheme (applying to England only) and a continued improvement in mortgage availability.
Rising demand for new and existing homes was reported to be concentrated among first and second-time buyers and buy-to-let investors. Transactions for more expensive properties remained more subdued, in part reflecting high levels of stamp duty, though were also starting to increase.
Estate agents and house builders reported that housing demand was running ahead of the available supply of existing or newly built homes, leading to rising house price expectations.
Business conditions summary
- Overall, the recovery in demand and output growth had strengthened a little further.
- Early feedback from contacts about forward guidance had been broadly positive, with a number of contacts indicating an increase in confidence that interest rates would remain low, providing some support to the recovery.
- Annual growth in consumer spending had increased, in part due to a period of good weather, but with underlying consumer confidence also reported to have risen.
- Activity in the housing market had continued to rise.
- Investment intentions had edged higher, though continued to point to modest growth in capital spending overall.
- Growth in manufacturing output had edged up a little, both for the domestic market and for export.
- Business services turnover growth had picked up, largely due to increasing activity within professional and financial services.
- Construction output had continued to strengthen as house-building activity rose.
- Corporate credit availability had been little changed.
- Employment intentions pointed to a slight increase in staffing over the coming six months.
- Capacity utilisation was expected to increase slightly in coming months, though a margin of spare capacity remained.
- The annual rate of growth in labour costs per employee had been broadly unchanged.
- Annual growth in materials costs had remained subdued and moderate inflation in imported finished goods prices had continued.
- Inflation in manufacturers’ output prices and business services prices remained muted.
- Consumer price inflation had remained moderate.