Home Information Packs (HIPs) are slowing the house market down

Filed Under Finance

Today is the day in which home information packs are now mandatory for the sale of three bedroom houses in the UK. This unpopular law is now affecting 60pc of the house market, but there is strong evidence to show that HIPs are reducing the number of 4 bedroom houses being marketed by up to 67 percent!

There is a damning article in the Daily Telegraph that points out, in detail, some of the negative effects HIPs are having on the housing market already. And they have only been law for a month.

According to this article, the number of larger properties being put onto the market have fallen by 67pc in London and around 50pc in northern England. So if the number of houses being marketed falls significantly, it can only do one thing and that is force house prices upwards.

Now that HIPs are required for three bedroom houses, if we see the same number of falls in the numbers of these houses being marketed, then potentially catastrophic consequences could result for the property market.

We are entering unchartered waters with HIPs now. Sellers don’t like them as it is extra cost and stress for them, and buyers seem disinterested in them too. So home information packs are being less popular a month on from their introduction and they are likely to bring more instability into the housing market, not less, as the government intended.