BrightSale Forecasts Decline of 15% in UK House Prices to 2013

Leading online estate agent BrightSale today released a major report on the future of estate agency (Is There a Future for High Street Estate Agency?). A key finding was that UK residential property is now at a level of overvaluation that significantly exceeds 1989 (the last market peak).

If the house price to earnings ratio was to fall back to its historic average, prices would have to come down by 30%. BrightSale is a little less bearish than this, and points to evidence from the property derivatives market in predicting a drop of 15% between now and 2013.

The online agent also predicts that completions will suffer too, falling from 1.5 million in 2007 to only 1.1 million in 2013.

All this adds up to a gloomy outlook for traditional high street estate agents. BrightSale predicts that these will be no more than niche players in the market by 2013, squeezed out by falling completion revenues and competition from lower cost online agents.

Note to Editors:

The BrightSale’s ‘full service’ model combines a low percentage fee of 0.5% with human negotiators based in offices in Surrey and Manchester. The company was established in January 2007, and has almost 300 property listings.

ENDS

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Press Contacts and further information.

Visit BrightSale at www.brightsale.co.uk

Full report is available for free at www.brightsale.com/research/

For further information contact:

Andy Etches on 07515 888455 BrightSale, andy@brightsale.co.uk