Property Barometer - August 2016
The FNB National House Price Index rose by 6.6% year- on-year in August. This represents a slowing in the pace of growth from a revised 7% year-on-year rate in July, and the 3rd consecutive month of slowing since the 7.4% revised 2016 high reached in May.
On a month-on-month seasonally-adjusted basis, the index’s rate of inflation has slowed from its 0.71% 2016 high point in May to 0.46% in August. This comes after a prior “mini-surge” in month-on-month house price inflation in the months leading up to May. Month-on- month house price “mini-trends” often broadly track key indicators of economic performance. That recovery in month-on-month house price growth up until May more- or-less co-incided with some noteworthy recovery in the Barclays Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index(PMI). This, along with other indicators, pointed to some likely mild improvement in the country’s economic performance in the 2nd quarter of 2016 after a dismal contraction in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the 1st quarter.
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Author John Loos, FNB