What’s really going on in the property market

The UK property market 'has turned the corner' - or so the property Pollyannas like to imagine. But MoneyWeek economist James Ferguson has been looking at the numbers and he isn’t so sure. There's a lot of 'wonky maths' propping up house prices - which means the outlook for 2006 may not be quite as benign as most forecasters think...

The UK property market 'has turned the corner' - or so the property Pollyannas like to imagine. But MoneyWeek economist James Ferguson has been looking at the numbers and he isn't so sure

The mood has been very festive among the property market cognoscenti. In The Independent, Julia Kollewe noted that "house prices have risen for the first time in 18 months, providing further evidence that the housing market has turned the corner". Indeed, the latest month's upward blip seems to have convinced most observers that the housing market is already past the worst. "The property market may have slowed but house prices are expected to stand firm in the year ahead," says the FT; Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, told The Daily Telegraph that he believed the housing market had "finally bottomed"; and Propertyfinder.com's MD Jim Buckle announced that "the dark days of late 2004 and early 2005 for the housing market are well and truly behind us".

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James Ferguson qualified with an MA (Hons) in economics from Edinburgh University in 1985. For the last 21 years he has had a high-powered career in institutional stock broking, specialising in equities, working for Nomura, Robert Fleming, SBC Warburg, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Mitsubishi Securities.