40% House Price Rise Unlikely

One writer says it's not Foolish to believe in any house-price predictions, except that one thing we can all be sure of is that there will be a crash.

For some time, the loudest commentators and analysts have been positive about house prices.

Many of you will have seen today that the National Housing Federation (NHF) expects house prices to rise 40% by 2012, with the average price then breaching £300,000. With compounding, this means an average increase of roughly 8% per year. This is in line with the long-term average, which Halifax says is 8% since 1983.

'The market is going up!'

All predictions should be taken with a large spoon of salt, of course, because many of these upbeat forecasters have a vested interest. Even so, not all the bulls are as bullish as the NHF. (A bull thinks the market is going up.) Most seem to think price rises will slow.

TFS (a dealer of complex products, which aren't for Fools), launched a Future House Prices Index in January. It found house prices back then were £184,000, and was setting futures to just £213,000 by 2012, or about £90,000 lower than the NHF's prediction.

Michael Coogan of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) categorically told us in a podcast recently that there would be no crash. However, the CML reckons house prices will go up by just 7% in 2007 and only 2-3% in 2008*.

Halifax recently revised up its prediction for this year from 4% to 6%, but this is still lower than the average needed to hit NHF's prediction.

'It's gonna crash!'

The truth is, I can find many, many more predictions of continued rises than of a downturn, but here are some bears (the opposite of a bull) that I dug up:

Freelance Fool writer Cliff D'Arcy continues to be extremely bearish since writing Why The Next Housing Crash Will Be Worse!

David Miles, chief economist and MD of Morgan Stanley, said at the end of last year: 'A sharp fall in real house prices is likely at some point in the relatively near future, though it could yet be one to two years away'.

The Telegraph reported in January that Professor David B. Smith of the University of Derby, the chairman of the Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, predicted that house prices will continue to rise this year, but warned that as borrowing costs become too great for many families the market will slow dramatically, before going into reverse in 2009.

Interestingly, it's mostly individuals, as opposed to companies and organisations, who remain the most bearish. Remember to think about whether they too might have a vested interest.

Forecasters who have gone wrong before...

In short, it's all of them. I can't find a source that has consistently got it right, and I don't expect to find one. Not only have predictions been wrong, they've been spectacularly wrong. I'll give you some examples.

Cliff showed how wrong Nationwide and Halifax have been at the start of his article Five Property Warning Signs To Watch. In most years, their predictions have been significantly lower than what happened in reality. Nationwide now hedges its bets a little using a 3% range, although I still have no faith in it.

Hometrack made no predictions this year after guessing a 1% rise for 2006*. It was more like 10%.

I suspect that one of the reasons there are so few bears to bulls is the number who have got it so grossly wrong. Individuals who predicted falls* include:

• James Carrick, an analyst for ABN Amro predicted a 10% fall to occur in 2006.
• American Express' John Calverley, who predicted the crash of the early 90s, contributed supporting evidence to the view that anyone who correctly guesses the time of a crash is merely lucky. At the end of November 2004 he predicted a 30% crash in house prices. Prices have risen a lot since then, so the market will now have to plummet around 40% to reach that level.
• David Pannell of Durlacher also predicted a national fall of 30% over two years from the start of 2004.
• Roger Bootle, Capital Economics, is a well-known City of London economist. He predicted a 20% fall over two years at the start of 2005, so he was also spectacularly wrong.
• Pam Woodall of The Economist predicted in 2003 a drop of 20-25% over a few years due to irrational exuberance.

I think it gets to the point where you have to say these people were wrong, even those who set no deadline. After all, anyone can predict a crash. I predict a crash. It's bound to happen. But whether it happens next week, in a year, five years or twenty years is up for speculation. I'm sure whoever is lucky enough to call it at the right time will be a hero.

As for the NHF's prediction, with the track record of all other forecasters being so poor, it seems unlikely that its own prediction of a 40% increase will come true either.

My view

If I was asked if house prices will crash soon and I was pressed for a direct, simple, one word answer of 'Yes' or 'No', my response would be that, the general trend for house prices, over the long-term, is upwards and that, if there is a crash, it won't last forever, so anyone willing to stay in the same house for years and who can afford repayments, even if interest rates rise, should be fine.

Just don't ask me for an indirect answer.

*According to housepricecrash.co.uk

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