UK house prices fall; Europe market slows

Landlords looking to extend their property portfolio in the coming months have been handed encouraging news in regards to house prices, after the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) revealed that the cost of property in the UK continues to fall.

On top of this, those looking to expand onto the continent can take advantage of slowing price rises in Europe. The RICS European Housing Review 2012, released on February 28th, discovered that residential property in the UK fell by one per cent in 2011.

Most other European countries reflected this trend, though others nonetheless did well - Germany, France, Switzerland and Norway registered house price rises of five per cent or more. However, people looking for bargains to rent out may prefer to look in Ireland or Spain, which experienced significant falls - 17 per cent and 10 per cent drops respectively.

Nonetheless, there could be no better time than now to take advantage of low-priced stock. Since mid-2007, house prices in the UK have fallen by nearly one third; this is much more than in Spain (-27 per cent), Italy (-14 per cent) and Germany (-11 per cent) and France (-8 per cent).

Professor Michael Ball, author of the RICS research paper, said: "Real house prices in the UK have fallen by a third over the past four years, due to a combination of a weak housing market and general price inflation. This has been one of the largest declines in Europe and will help to underpin housing market recovery once economic growth picks up again."