House prices rise for a fifth month

More than a year ago the global crisis was initiated by the real estate sector with the sub-prime mortgages in the United Stats and then extended to the whole economy around the world.

Today after more than a year of bad news about the real estate market, newspapers are reporting a rise in the housing price in United Kingdom but remarking that this sign does not have to be interpreted as a full recovery of the market due to the fact that the future is still uncertain.

Major newspapers are giving the news with particular attention to not communicate the reader a too optimistic view of how the market is performing; they try to state the news in the most objective way in order to not influence the reader opinion.

The first paragraphs of the Financial Times are focusing on figures gathered from the Nationwide building society: “Prices rose by 0.9 per cent to an average of £161,816 over the month on a seasonally adjusted basis after a 1.4 per cent rise in August.”

The second part of the article is based on the interview with Martin Gahbauer, chief economist at Nationwide where he is stating the different reason of the risen and the future expectations “Normally, housing turnover is well correlated with house prices, but when there is only a small number of homes available on the market – as is the case at the moment – even a low rate of turnover can lead to rising property values.”

As a characteristic of the FT the people are expecting an objective article without the journalist intervention or opinion; this could be a perfect example simple structure and clear explanation of facts and figures.

As BBC News states figures and the interview with the chief economist, the structure is completely different structure and is approaching the matter focusing in details on the impact of mortgages on the risen of prices.

In the introduction is explaining how 300 billon have been borrowed from the beginning of 2008: “further £7bn was added to people's equity in the country's housing stock.” or “an extra £29bn has now been added to the value of their stake in the UK's housing wealth.”

From the point of view of buyer could be identified the sceptical point of view on the Nationwide announcement by the declaration of the BBC economic editor: “The more fundamental reason why prices might start falling again is that, by most measures, they are still significantly over-valued”.

It is noticeable that the Guardian article is targeting middle-class people that are interested on the news but with simple concept and easy numbers. The main difference is the people interviewed: the Guardian has interviewed estate agents around England and not famous expert in the sector.

The article uses a simple language and concept although with a good level of understanding of the matter and clear explanation of the actual situation.

The entire article is based on the lack of supply in the housing that have helped the risen of the prices "It doesn't seem the typical market in housing, because it is constrained in different ways: it's constrained by finance; it's constrained by supply," he said. "It's reasonable to assume that lack of supply is still underpinning prices."

Also in this article the caution of communicate good news and the attention of giving also the bad scenario to the readers are underlined.

Reading these articles I had the impression that the crisis has increased the awareness and the objectivity of the media and has created a more sceptical approach of accepting the good news.

All three articles have tried to give the buyers different point of views and multiple way of interpret the news’ aspects.

FT : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2781502e-af26-11de-ba1c-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8286028.stm

The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/02/nationwide-doubts-housing-market-recovery