Published: Friday, 3rd April, 2009 12:30pm

Networking - it's better than the news

ONE of the more pleasant things about covering business stories is the chance to meet loads of people while you eat and drink.

They call it networking but it is really socialising with an agenda. Networking brought me in touch with many estate agents recently and their musings on the housing market are worth reporting.

Their general opinion seems to be that when the house price indecies of the Nationwide and Halifax start to report the bottom of the market, it will have actually happened three or four months earlier.

That's because the transactions those surveys refer to are when sales complete, not at the time the price is agreed. So if you rely on Five Live or the any of the national news services, the latest news is actually December's or January's.

The agents' advice is to keep talking to your local agent. That would say that wouldn't they?

But on this occasion I think they are right.