Flint gaffe reveals house price pessimism
Housing minister Caroline Flint says she believes house prices will fall by five and ten per cent this year “at best”.
The gaffe revealed she now expects house prices to fall by between five and ten per cent this year “at best”.
Her prediction was exposed after she emerged from No 10 carrying her official briefing notes which could be seen by waiting photographers.
The document, headed “Caroline Flint – speaking notes”, had a sticker attached which said “Papers for Cabinet meeting 13 May 2008”.
The housing minister is believed to have admitted that “we can’t know how bad it will get” to her colleagues as well as that house-building was “stalling” – despite government assurances they will be increasing the building of new homes across the country.
The briefing notes also stated: “Given present trends, they [house prices] will clearly show sizeable falls in prices later this year – at best down five per cent to ten per cent year-on-year.”
“But it is vital that at this time of uncertainty we show that we are on people’s side,” the document concludes.
The news comes as her department released figures which show the rate of house price growth slipping by 1.1 per cent.
The average house price grew by 5.2 per cent in the year to March 2008, down from 6.3 per cent in the year to February 2008. The result was that the average house price grew to £217,344 in March 2008, up from £217,089 in February 2008.
Between February and March house prices barely moved with an increase of just 0.1 per cent in the price of properties compared with a larger rise of 1.1 per cent over the same period last year. The DCLG says this caused the fall in the annual average price.
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