Property sales fall-throughs back at pre-pandemic levels says industry firm

The volume of sales falling through has reduced by more than 6% since March this year and is almost aligned with the pre-pandemic level seen in July 2019 while the ‘time to exchange’ has continued to fall month on month since February and dropped to 113 days in July, says TwentyEA.

Despite the problems caused by higher interest rates, it also says four out of the 10 regions in England have achieved growth in exchanged prices of at least 5% this year compared with 2022.

Northern Ireland saw the highest growth of exchanged prices at 8.4% while the South West, Inner London, East of England, the North West, and Scotland all achieved more than 5%.

Growth in instruction prices year on year was also highest in Northern Ireland (7%) while the North West saw an increase of 5.7%, Scotland achieved 5.7% and Yorkshire and the Humber saw 5.1%.

On the average property, growth in the last year equates to £13,000, with £64,000 since 2019.

Overall, asking prices at original instruction have risen an average of 2.8% in the last year and 24% since 2019. This is a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.4% per annum.

EXCHANGED PRICES

Exchanged prices have also grown at an average of 3.8% over the course of the last year and 22% since 2019 – a CAGR of 4% per annum.

In percentage terms, the gap between the initial asking and exchanged prices is almost the same in 2023 as it was in 2019.

Despite the numerous gloomy headlines instruction and exchanged prices have continued to rise.”

Katy Billany, executive director of TwentyEA, says: “Despite the numerous gloomy headlines we’ve read over the last few months instruction and exchanged prices have continued to rise across the UK with four out of the 10 regions in England all seeing growth in exchanged prices of 5% or more, a trend also evident in Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

And she adds: “Looking regionally at ‘fallen through’ volumes over the last year, only Scotland experienced an increase.

“Nationally, the lowest priced properties – those under £200,000 – are now significantly less likely to have a fall through than this time last year. It’s also very promising to see the ‘time to exchange’ continue to fall and we remain hopeful this continues.”