Three annual survey results spelt out the recovery of the property market but the expected rate of recovery is not like the boom experienced by the property market in the years before. The report said that mortgage lending levels were up again as they were on November ’04. At the time, house price gains per year were up by twenty per cent. Net mortgage lending went up by almost four billion pounds sterling. It was a rise in the rate from October and the peak rate since August.

The British Bankers Association reported the net mortgage lending to have increased by a little more than five billion pound sterling. This has been unreported of since July the previous year. The Council of Mortgage Lenders lending is up by 28.5 billion pounds sterling. This too has been a record since the last July. The house price gains in ’05 were nil. Their growth is a question looming over the industry. Some people in the industry are very pessimistic about it.

It would be good to expect a good rise in mortgage lending, transactions and house rise prices but the real picture doesn’t accommodate too comfortably. We might as well be disappointed from the very start so that we wont be disappointed in the end. Hopes can stay in the fact the rise in mortgage lending has led to a rise in price of houses.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed a usual price gain during the first year and a quarter. However, that has not been enough to give the market an overall chance of a better performance. It can be rated so only if it comes to par with other housing rates which are not single digit. To give a correct appraisal, one should let time show us what the market has in store. A positive point though is that there is a high rate of employment. The interest rates were brought down in August. House price to income ratios and the cost of servicing debt is quite high. This is what will work against the possibility of a good turn around. Valuation and servicing burdens should be a hindrance to a development but without anything else against it is unlikely that the downfall of the market will be hurting to the market.

The only thing that all these statistics prove is that the market has fallen and is dependant on a steady demand to stay up. It is clear that there is recovery from a rise in interest rates. The rates went upto 4.75 percent in August’04. There was sign of some respite when it came down by a quarter percent a year after (August ’05). It is a concern of the Bank of England if the rise in mortgage lending will increase the cash meted out by the customer. This relationship is very important. BBA information shows that credit card borrowing was low in November (it rose by only a hundred and twenty five million pounds sterling) as opposed to the same in October (459 million). The average rate though has stayed at a hundred and forty six million pounds sterling. The future at least in the next few months has mixed expectations. The increase in retail sales is not triggering credit borrowing or the rise in personal loan transactions.