Reports of sales market’s demise ‘may be greatly exaggerated’

The propety sales market has moved back to pre-pandemic levels with sales agreed increasing 14.5% to £305,000 in the first half of the year with seven out of 10 (68%) properties listed having sold, latest research from TwentyCI reveals.

It’s Property & Homemover Report for Q2 2023 says the number is an indication of the resilience rather than the free fall of the owner-occupied market.

ASKING PRICES

Average asking prices were also up by 6% on the quarter and by 24% compared to the first quarter of 2019, now standing at £447,000.

Despite some slim downward regional movement the report says that the widely touted crash in values has still yet to materialise.

Within the sales market, shortages of residential property stock remain acute at the lower levels of pricing. But the report says levels have now fully recovered at the higher-priced bands.

For rentals, the market remains under stress with a ‘perfect storm’ of monetary, fiscal, regulatory and demographic factors driving historic stock shortages and consequently higher rents.

Meanwhile the hybrid and online agent market share continues to drift lower as the lower-cost business model fails to capture the imagination of vendors, with the share for exchanges is down to 6.4% in Q2.

Sales market

Colin Bradshaw, TwentyCi Chief Executive, says: “There has been no shortage of attention-grabbing headlines declaring doom for the housing market of late.

“The economic backdrop does remain a concern and all eyes should be on whether inflation slows and so interest rates stabilise.

“But the signs are that the market is proving remarkably resilient. To borrow a phrase from Mark Twain, reports of the market’s demise may well be greatly exaggerated, at least as far as the owner-occupied market is concerned.

“It is in the rental sector where a real impasse remains, and structural forces are leading to a perfect storm of increasing demand and reducing supply.”