A picture of higher house prices, increasing numbers of buyers and stable or falling interest rates is presented in the results of a survey of nearly 1500 mortgage brokers.
Conducted in January by UCB Home Loans, the specialist lender of Nationwide, the research shows that 65% of brokers expect house prices to rise this year, whilst 31% expect them to remain broadly the same as in 2005, and 4% think they will fall. Just over half (52%) expect more buyers to enter the market in 2006, whilst 32% think the number of homebuyers will be roughly the same as last year and 16% think there will be fewer.
The picture for interest rates indicates expectations of stable or falling rates, with 43% thinking they will fall over the year, 48% seeing them remaining stable and 9% thinking they will rise.
