Property Snake

"Cornish Coast" taken in 1993

I've just read that in the UK only two English counties are in the "top 10" list of those with the highest house price inflation between 1997 and 2007 - and the top one is Cornwall. In the last 10 years prices have risen by 266%. To return to 1997 levels house prices would need to fall by about 65% (assuming 30% "real" inflation) - and assuming that the current price hasn't been hugely optimistic in the first place, of course, which in some cases it clearly has - there are stories of people adding on 10% to what would have been a "fair" market price just to give themselves "room for manoeuvre" - very dangerous in such price sensitive times! Houses go stale and that makes them even harder to sell.

There is a house price tracker called propertysnake which attempts to chart houses that are having to reduce their prices. I like this site as it shows me which houses are beginning to be priced more realistically. Its just a shame that some websites have complained about it using photos and linking to them. The biggest drops on there are of the order of 30%. However even there this site tells the lie to the idea that houses were selling easily in the first 6 months of 2007 - loads have been on the market for 9 months or more - and these are just the ones that haven't either directly or indirectly "reset" their count - for instance by changing agent.