Sales 19 per cent below trend
LONDON (Reuters) - UK home sales are likely to remain about a quarter of a million below trend in 2008 after a 20 percent drop in the second half of 2007, Britain's biggest estate agent said on Tuesday.
Grenville Turner, group chief executive of Countrywide PLC, told the Reuters Housing Summit that up to 1.1 million transactions were likely this year compared with a long-term average of 1.35 million.
But that depended on a return to a more "normal market" in the second half of the year as economic confidence recovered, a global credit crunch eased, and as hesitancy on the part of house buyers gave way to pent-up demand, he said.
Countrywide is Britain's biggest estate agency group, with around 1,300 branches operating under more than 40 different brands. It was taken private last May by U.S. private equity group Apollo Management L.P., which also owns U.S. real estate franchisor Realogy Corporation.
Turner said there was little clear evidence to show actual UK house price inflation or even sellers' asking prices had turned decidedly lower.
"We haven't seen a huge downward pressure on prices," Turner said, while recognizing regional differences in supply and demand which continued to support London, southeast England, and northern Ireland but was dragging on southwest England and northern English cities like Leeds and Manchester.
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