The news continues to remind us that property prices continue to plummet, property sales have plunged almost 15% from April to May. According to HM Revenue & Customs, which measures stamp duty payments, there were only 100,000 house sales in May down from 115,000 in April. In contrast with last years figure for the same month house sales are down almost 40%.

To give some indication of the level of demand in the property sales market Rightmove the property website reported that sellers out number buyers by about 15 to 1. This means a lot of properties are sticking on the estate agents books and many of them it seems could be out of business.

As a consequence of lower demand in the sales market there is an increase demand in the rental market according to Paragon a leading buy-to-let mortgage lender. They went on to mention that rental yields have increased almost 12% in the last year. This means that living costs will continue to rise as landlords increase the rent putting further pressure on people to tighten their purse strings on other spending.

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2. UK Property News July 15 2008
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4. Home Sales Lowest Since 1978
5. Latest UK Property News