Figures don’t tell the whole story, say estate agents
Thursday 14th May 2009, 2:29PM BST.
OFFICIAL figures that show property prices having fallen by 11% could be misleading, according to some estate agents.
John Le Tissier (pictured), partner at Alpha Estates, and Spencer Noyon, director at Swoffers, said the information produced by the Policy Council was not a fair representation of the housing market.
Guernsey residential property prices showed the biggest fall in the value of flats and houses sold in the island since these records began 10 years ago.
The average property price stood at £289,250 at the end of March this year, a drop of 15.4% since December, and of 11% from March 2008.
But Mr Le Tissier said that while the statistics were headline-grabbing, he did not believe they had any relevance to the market.
‘I do not think you get a fair representation based on these figures,’ he said. ‘The figures are only the way they are because of the properties on the market at that time. The figures are distorted, based on whether high or low-end properties are sold. I don’t think you can read anything into them and I would say they are possibly unhelpful figures.
‘But people have common sense and they can see property prices are going up. The whole market looks fairly healthy.’
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I think Guernsey must be only place which is impacted by the global fall in property prices. Property prices have increased, rent has gone by upto 20%, which is not fair at all.
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Is an inflated market ‘healthy’?
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Average price in Guernsey 289K.
Average price in Jersey 500K +.
Are both Islands using the same formula ?
There seem to be many very overpriced properties listed in the press pages today.
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Yes, the UK estate agents tried using the same tortured logic when the market started collapsing over there….if only the “cheap” properties are selling, what it actually means is the top-end stuff is priced above what buyers are prepared to pay. Perhaps prices of houses that have actually sold haven’t dropped, but when sales volumes for the quarter are down 30% on the next lowest quarter in the last six years, its only a matter of time before sellers become more realistic in their asking prices.
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