FNB Sep house price index unchanged

FNB Sep house price index unchanged

First National Bank's house price index has recorded 5.6% year-on-year growth (y/y) in September, unchanged from the revised 5.6% in August.

This "stalling", said FNB property strategist John Loos, can partly be ascribed to rising base effects, with the bout of month-on-month house price decline around mid-2010 being at its worst around August last year, and thereafter starting to dissipate.

However, it is believed that economic factors are also beginning to play a role in constraining house price growth, with the interest rate cutting stimulus of late-2010 wearing thin, and economic growth having slowed in the second quarter 2011 placing pressure on real household disposable income growth.

In real terms, adjusting house price growth for consumer price inflation, August saw a very slight +0.3% positive y/y growth rate after nine consecutive months of y/y decline, with y/y house price inflation outstripping consumer price inflation.

On a month-on-month basis, house prices showed further loss in momentum in September, with growth turning negative to the tune of -0.24%, down from a revised +0.19% in August. This is the continuation of a weakening month-on-month growth trend spanning back to the +1.34% peak of February 2011.

Looking forward to the remainder of 2011, Loos noted that were no obvious major economic stimuli for a still poorly balanced - weak demand versus supply - South African residential property market, with interest rates still on hold for now, and global and domestic economic growth currently slowing.

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