Housing Market
News covering issues affecting the UK residential property market, house prices, interest rates and buying and selling trends.
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Auctions are booming while rest of industry struggles, say leading property auctioneers
Property auctioneers are booming and taking market share off traditional high street property sales, it has been claimed by two leading auctioneers. Tony Limbrick, founder of Network Auctions, says his company has had a record year during 2017 while private treaty sales have dipped to an all-time low as the economic uncertainty created by Brexit and high house prices have kicked in. “We firmly believe our results confirm the confidence people continue to have in the sector,” he says. His comments reflect similar claims recently by James Emson (pictured, left) of auctioneer Clive Emson, who said auctions have been taking market share off high street agents this year. As the year comes to a close, Tony Limbrick says 2017 was his company’s most successful year to date generating sales revenues of £41m compared to £36m last year. Also, the number of property’s sold at its auctions has increased from 79% to 81% by the same measure. Toby, who started up Network Auctions in 2005 after a career as an estate agent with Bairstow Eves, says auctions are doing well despite the “collapse of buy-to-let and uncertainty since Brexit”. “Our record breaking results in such a difficult market are testament to…
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House sales have slumped this year – or have they?
The number of house sales in England has dropped by 12% compared to a year ago, according to latest figures from the government’s statisticians, the ONS. The figures are for August and are based in part on the latest set of sales results to be released by the Land Registry. The data also reveals that the number of homes sold dropped elsewhere too – by 15.8% in London and by 3.4% in Wales, both by the same measure. But the house sales report is entirely contradicted by figures from HMRC which reveal it believes that the number of homes sold in the UK increased by 9.2% during the year to October 2017, and by 1.7% over the past month. We spoke to the Land Registry, who were unable to explain the difference between the two house sales numbers and, we are told, neither is the ONS. So baffling is the difference between the HMRC data, which is based on Stamp Duty receipts, and the Land Registry data, that the Negotiator has been told analysts at Savills have spent a lot of time and energy on finding out why. “I would back the ONS figures every time because they are the…
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Agent stock down 6.75% compared to 2015, latest Rightmove index figures reveal
The average level of sales stock per estate agent branch has dropped by 6.75% compared to 2015, the latest Rightmove index reveals. This decrease in the number of homes available for sale is across the board; for every month so far this year the average figure is lower than the same month two years ago. During 2015, historical Rightmove data shows, agents had 61.8 properties on their books on average, which has now dropped by four properties to 57.6 properties. Rightmove says in its report that overall estate agents’ stock of property for sale remains “tight” particularly further north where demand is exceeding supply. Northern price rises This is also pushing up prices faster in the north than the south – Rightmove says the North East’s housing market is experiencing the fastest asking price growth at the moment, up 1.3% month-on-month and 4.7% year-on-year. Also, it’s the regions above London that are doing the best year-on-year as London, the SE and SW all experiencing weaker price growth than their northern counterparts. Rightmove is also pessimistic about next year, which it says will see asking price growth of 1% overall. “2018 will continue the 2017 trend by being a real mixed…
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Smaller landlords are disappearing – is this what the Government wanted all along?
Growth in the buy-to-let sector this year has dropped dramatically as more amateur, smaller portfolio landlords have stopped buying properties or decided to leave the market, a report has claimed. The Kent Reliance annual Buy To Let Britain survey, published in association with Legal & General, quizzed 865 landlords and shows that the recent mix of tax reform and tighter regulation has reduced growth in the number of privately rented houses to 2.2% this year, down from just over 8% in 2014. These recent reductions in tax allowances and extra Stamp Duty, coupled with a second round of stricter buy-to-let lending rules introduced by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) this year, means the market now favours larger portfolio and institutional investors, the report claims. Limited companies And the landlords who have stuck with buy-to-let are now increasingly turning to limited company status to reduce their tax costs. Kent Reliance says 70% of all buy-to-let loans are now from companies rather than individuals. This, Kent Reliance Chief Executive Andy Golding (pictured, left) says, is having the effect many warned it would – to push up rents as tenant demand outstrips supply in some areas of the UK, in particular the East…
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Historic high: UK housing market now worth £6 trillion
The value of the nation’s homes passed the £6 trillion mark for the first time in its history, the Halifax has revealed. It says house price inflation of 5% over the past year has pushed up the total market value of homes in the UK by nearly £400m so far this year, raising the total to £6 trillion. It’s not all due to house price rises, agents may be happy to note. Since 2007 the number of private dwellings available to be sold has increased by 1.9 million, Halifax says. Although this sounds punchy, it only represents a rise of 190,000 homes being added to the stock every year – far less than the 300,000-yearly run rate that the government recently said it wanted to achieve. Housing market London has led the charge for both additional homes and house price rises, reflecting the huge demand for homes to buy in the capital. The number of homes added to the stock in the capital over the past decade totals 250,000, Halifax says, while London homes on average have increased by 71% to an average of £579,761. “The value of housing stock has grown by close to £2 trillion in the past…
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First time buyers counting on parents’ death to get on property ladder
Young first time buyers can seem like a desperate lot sometimes as they scrimp and save for a deposit, or beg deposits off their parents. But now a new kind of desperation has set in – those waiting for their parents to die. Research by online agency TheHouseShop.com to find out which options offer younger people the best chance of getting on the property ladder discovered that only 10% are taking the traditional route of saving up. Completed by YouGov, the research found that instead many first time buyers are instead hoping to take a rather morbid short cut. Just over a fifth hoped to become home owners when their parents passed away and left them the family home, while 17% were relying on using the money left to them by their parents. Property ladder Also, another fifth were expecting to borrow money off their parents before they die, meaning that nearly 60% of first time buyers are relying on their family or parents in one shape or another to get them on the property ladder. One surprising figure from the research is that the government’s Shared Ownership Scheme is obviously seen as a strategy of last resort – just…
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Property market slowdown worst at top of market, says Rightmove
The largest houses are taking the longest to find buyers as the property market slowdown continues, it has been revealed. Rightmove’s monthly house price index reveals that across the UK properties with five bedrooms and detached four-bedroom houses are taking 76 days to sell, while in London it’s 86 days. The average time to sell across the UK for all properties is 63 days, the portal says. Property market slowdown Rightmove believes the slowdown at the “top of the ladder” is helping soften the sales market overall. In London the number of sales agreed compared to same period a year ago is down by 9%, while southern counties have experienced a dip of 7.8%. The north has fared better, Rightmove says, with a dip of just 3%. But these are only year-on-year figures – better than expected sales across the UK earlier this year means sales so far this year are ahead of 2016. “Sales agreed numbers are holding up better in the north, whilst a common factor throughout the country is the lower and middle market sectors being the most active,” says Rightmove director Miles Shipside (pictured, left) “However, where property prices have far outstripped buyers’ wages, and consequently…
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Backlash against second homes gathers pace in the South West
The backlash against second homes continues after campaigners within the village of Mevagissey in Cornwall submitted plans to block outsiders buying new-builds to use as holiday homes in the picturesque fishing port. The move follows the Chancellors move in his Autumn budget two years ago to increase Stamp Duty on properties bought as second homes by an additional 1%, and three other villages and towns which have also introduced new-build bans. In Cornwall these include – most famously – the coastal community of St Ives but also St Minver and Rame Peninsula, and Lynton in Devon. In a recent poll of Megavissey residents by the county council, 56% said they didn’t want to see any more housing within the parish, 74% said they would support restricting the number of holiday or second homes being bought within the village, with only 16 opposed to such moves. Development plan In Mevagissey locals have included the new rules within the village’s Neighbourhood Development Plan or NDP, which must be then approved by Cornwall Council. Holiday homes make up a quarter of the village’s property market, and its average price according to Rightmove is £299,587, nearly £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000,…
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Former NAEA leader says housing White Paper is “toothless” and answer is to reform CGT and Stamp Duty
A leading industry commentator and past president of the NAEA has written to the new housing minister Alok Sharma (pictured, below) outlining his concern about the state of the property market and the government’s stalled attempts to tackle it. Within the letter Simon Gerrard (pictured, right), who runs north London agency Martyn Gerrard, accuses Theresa May’s government of not taking housing seriously. He also says the recent “toothless” White Paper is another example of the many speeches and papers in recent years that have come to nothing. “Whilst [the White Paper] made the right noises, a lack of active and transformative policy means we cannot fight the growing challenges facing our housing market,” the letter says. Simon’s missive comes just days after the Housing minister made his first major industry speech at the Resi 2017 conference at the Celtic Manor hotel in Wales, at which he promised to turn the White Paper “into action”. But Simon says that despite the Minister’s promises, he fears the government demonstrates a chronic lack of understanding of the market, and how to effectively fix it and that like many of his predecessors, Alok is good at producing sound bites, but not tangible actions. “I…
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Too good to be true? Rightmove says sales up 5% across UK
The number of homes sold in the UK during September is nearly 5% higher than last year, latest research from Rightmove reveals. The portal also says people’s earnings are now rising faster than house prices rises, the first time this has happened since the early noughties. Rightmove’s monthly house price index says “demand remains strong for the right property at the right price” but that prices are rising by 1.1% on average across the UK, the lowest annual rise since February 2012. The portal says the average price for a home in the UK during September is 313,663, down from £330,003 in August and a 1.2% drop despite the overall annual rise. It’s part of a trend that has included drops in price or very weak increases since June. This trend bucks the usual post-Summer bounce that the property market enjoys as buyers and sellers stimulate the market after their return from holidays and activity ramps up. Damp squib Rightmove blames this“damp squib” Autumn market on London’s faltering performance, where prices dropped by 2.9% during September, although prices have been falling month-on-month elsewhere including in Wales (-3.3%), the South West (-0.7%) and the West Midlands (-1.3%). London is the only…
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