Sept 2 (Reuters) – Shares in British homebuilders tumbled on Friday after analysts at HSBC warned that the UK is on the cusp of a housing downturn, as a steep climb in mortgage charges casts a cloud over demand.

HSBC’s Constructing Supplies crew predicts a 20% droop in UK housing demand for a yr from this autumn, the brokerage wrote in a word. Britain’s housebuilders’ index (.FTNMX402020) fell about 4% to its lowest in almost 9 years.

The brokerage downgraded all UK housebuilders beneath its protection to “maintain” from “purchase”, aside from high-end homebuilder Berkeley Group (BKGH.L), whose score was reduce to “scale back” from “maintain”. In the meantime, it saved its “purchase” score on Vistry (VTYV.L).

Berkeley, Barratt (BDEV.L), Persimmon (PSN.L) and Taylor Wimpey (TW.L) led declines on the FTSE 100 (.FTSE), falling between 2% and 5%.

Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru

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