The Building Society Association’s property tracker shows the number of people who are pessimistic about the property market has dropped substantially since a mid-2014 dip.
This coincided with the introduction of new mortgage regulations and the announcement by the Financial Policy Committee of actions to limit lending in the housing market.
Results now indicate that transaction volumes may begin to slowly pick up after cooling off late last year.
The report showed despite average wages increasing and high levels of employment, raising a deposit is still viewed as the greatest barrier to buying a home. Overall, 59% of those surveyed say that this is the biggest hurdle they have to overcome, up by three percentage points on December 2014.
On the base rate, more than one in ten borrowers say that they would be forced to miss a payment on a bill if interest rates rose by 1% over the year ahead. A further 12% said that making loan repayments would be a constant struggle.
BSA head of mortgage policy, Paul Broadhead, (pictured) said: “Consumers and providers are [also] cheered by the fact that house building is starting to increase, household finances are less squeezed and inflation has fallen to 0%. Even if deflation happens – provided it is short lived and is not generated by a fall in demand in the economy – it should not be damaging,” he said.
Broadhead added that he expects the Financial Policy Committee to keep watching property prices and sales volumes carefully with its new macroprudential tools to hand, but added housebuilding is the long-term alternative.
“Earlier this month we asked for a revolution in the provision of new housing in our discussion document Housing at the Heart of Government. Like millions of others, we now await the outcome of the General Election to discover whether housing will sit at the top of the political agenda as promised.”
