Safestyle and its peer group are down on concerns that demand in the UK home market is weakening. What is the best way to track this demand overall, week to week?
I think trying to track demand for housing is rather difficult. There are a lot of data that you can draw on to make your own assumptions such as;
- Average house prices (may want to look at this by region or london/rest of UK split)
- Time before average property is sold
- Order backlogs for house builders
- Interest rates
- Availability of mortgages and government support programs
The problem is that it is not quite a free market. The issue is very important politically and thus we have programs such as "help to take on debt" "help to buy", which skews the market and (in my opinion at least) has prevented market corrections.
Any attempt to decide where the housing market is headed would have to make assumptions on whether the government will or will not intervene.