House prices & disjointed reporting from the BBC

BUt it isn't the BBC's disjointed reporting is it?

Article one reports that the nationwide declared a house price rise according to its figures and article two repots that the Halifax reports a fall according to its figures. WHich both do.

WHy is that the fault of the BBC?

Noel will be along in a sec to give you chapter and verse, but all the housing indexes are flawed.
NW and Halifax are giving figures on what they see..... so if their business is not representative (and given the state of both of them at the moment i would say it might not be, despite their size) their indexes will be similarly flawed.
Equally rightmove use asking prices to give a view on where housing is headed (and they have already admitted that's flawed.
The land Registery is so far behind they have no real idea if they are flawed or not (They shouldn't be what with them recording every transaction, but who knows if they are right or not)

There is one firm that does a survey or surveys, but seeing as that firm is a property investment company I'm not sure their figures are to be trusted.

Localisation is where its at for Housing at the moment i think.
If your area is getting clobbered it matter not that somewhere 200miles away is holding firm.

By the way, I don't much care for which one is correct.

My point is that I think they should run a story mentioning the other report and detailing the differences.. or a story that two surveys report the opposite and looking into what the reality is.

It would be like the BBC saying on one report that MMGW is causing the sea to rise, and on another say MMGW is causing the sea to fall.

They wouldnt do that, would they.....

A point missed by most people. Like everything else, house prices will fluctuate due to supply and demand, but it seems that certain areas were massively over priced in the first place. As these areas realise how much their houses are actually worth, they may see larger drops.

Last year I offered 340k on a house that was listed at 400k as that is what I believed it to be worth. The Estate Agent did a sort of fake surprise laugh and asked if i was joking and made some rude comments. I gave her my reasons, previous sale prices from the Land Registry, general trends in the area, but I was given some story about these type of houses across the country being in constant demand etc. House is still for sale 14 months later, on the market at 340k and the estate agent is struggling. As you say, it really only matters what is going on in your own area, regardless of the national picture.