property market
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Latest property news
New property sales instruction rise for first time in 27 months, surveyors say
The number of new property sales instructions increased last month for the first time in more than two years, surveyors have reported, helped in part by rising buy-to-let activity. This promising news for estate agents is contained within the latest market survey from RICS, which says there a “few signs of life as houses start to come back on to the market”. Agents shouldn’t crack open the bubbly quite yet. RICS also says average stock levels per branch remain not far above recent historic lows at an average of 42.5 properties. “It therefore remains to be seen whether the increase in May truly marks the beginning of supply pressures easing,” it says. Also, nearly a fifth of member surveyors canvassed by RICS said the number of valuations they completed last month was lower than the same period last year. The institute also says that recent declines in buyer interest are beginning to ease off, and that the number of agreed sales has held steady as more surveyors report positive results, the best RICS has recorded for over a year. “Although agents are suggesting that a little more supply may have come onto the market in May, some of it from…
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Features
Why there’s nothing to fear from online estate agents
Fearing online estate agents is the wrong approach if you're a traditional branch operators, as 'normal' agents can learn a lo from them.
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Features
Reports from the front line: how’s the property market in your area?
Each month we visit three agents across the country to discover what is happening in their local market. This month we meet members of The Guild of Property Professionals in Oxfordshire, East London and Devon.
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Purplebricks blames slow start to Spring market on weather, training and economy
Purplebricks has hit its first purple patch after it was revealed today that group revenues for the financial year are likely to be 5% lower than its target of £98 million. In a statement released this morning, the company says a difficult few weeks during late February and early March are to blame for the drop in performance, although Purplebricks says overall group cashflow is on track to be double that of last year’s, helped by good performances from its US and Australian operations. It blames the slowdown on “macro issues” within the economy – presumably the ongoing Brexit jitters – plus the ‘Beast from the East’ storm and the fact that 10% of its LPEs were withdrawn from the market for a training course during late February and early March. These factors drove down sales instructions by 17% during the first three weeks of this month year-on-year, Purplebricks reveals. New instructions “While Purplebricks has experienced strong growth in its UK division to date and it continues to build market share in both the total estate agency market and hybrid estate agency sector in the UK, it has experienced lower than expected levels of new instructions for the Company during…
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Latest property news
London to be hit by triple whammy as experts predict soft property market during 2018
House price rises will slip behind inflation this year by half a percent across the UK and 1.6% in London, it has been predicted by over 30 leading property market experts. News agency Reuters, which polled the unnamed experts last week, says continuing worries over Brexit and weak consumer spending will subdue house price rises and investment confidence in the property sector. “Would-be sellers are holding onto assets for longer and buyers are being a little more diligent before committing to significant expenditures, all this against a backdrop of inflation-surpassing wage growth,” says Rod Lockhart of online mortgage firm LendInvest (pictured, left). Reuters says a majority of the experts it polled believed that the effect of the UK’s planned exit from Europe on London had been to decrease sales turnover, but that the picture was less clear nationally. Eleven of the 18 experts who answered the question on property sales said London’s turnover would decrease this year, driven by huge affordability problems, Brexit but also the government’s tax-hikes for landlords. “Quite simply, with loan-to-income ratios for first time buyers sitting at around four times, average salaries of £33,000, and your average flat in London costing over £500,000, it’s extremely difficult…
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Features
A forecast with 2020s vision
Forecasts, predictions, opinions – they are in great supply at this time of year, but, says Kate Faulkner, what can we learn from the forecasts for the next five years?
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Features
Agents’ diaries: property markets in Brighton, Devon and Northumberland
Each month we visit three agents across the country to discover what is happening in their local market. This month we meet members of The Guild of Property Professionals in Brighton, Crediton and Northumberland.
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Latest property news
House prices to rise by just 1% this year, says leading lender
House prices will rise by just 1% this year, the latest house price report from the Nationwide reveals, returning to growth only in the “the longer term”. The lender says the average house price increase last year was 2.6%, down from 4.5% during 2016 as housing affordability problems and mounting pressure on household incomes continued to put the brakes on activity within the property market. Despite this, during 2017 all regions of the UK experienced house price gains except London, where they dipped by half a percent. “The major surprise during 2017 was undoubtedly the slowdown in London house prices. It’s been 13 years since the Capital sat at the bottom of the house price growth table, and since then we have seen prices surge to unprecedented and unaffordable levels,” says Alex Gosling, founder of HouseSimple.com (pictured, left). “Fortunately, there’s no longer the reliance on the London market to prop up the rest of the country. Growing regional business hubs have seen other major UK cities prosper, while London has suffered as property prices have become unaffordable for the majority. The West Midlands was the top performing region in the UK last year for house prices, where they rose by 5.2%…
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Latest property news
Is the Brexit effect finally over? Conveyancers and lenders report improving property market
Both conveyancers and mortgage lenders say the property market has recovered significantly in recent months, signalling a return to ‘business as usual’ in many areas of the country. This includes the workload of conveyancing solicitors which has risen to its highest for a year, with some firms experiencing an increase of up to 27% over the past three months, says data firm Search Acumen. Its Market Tracker reveals that transactions “bounced back” between July and September compared to the previous three months, when transactions nosedived. Between July and September conveyancing volumes increased from 210,964 to 254,606 or 21% between the two quarters. Search Acumen says the increase in case-load came directly from an improvement in the property market. But although the number of homes being sold has surged ahead recently, Search Acumen says the property market still has some way to go before it returns to complete health; transactions levels are still 6% down year-on-year, it says. “After the noticeable dip in conveyancing activity revealed by the Q2 2017 edition of the Market Tracker, it’s encouraging to see an uptick in activity through the summer period,” says Andrew Lloyd, Managing Director of Search Acumen (pictured, left). “The conveyancing industry has broadly…
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Latest property news
Asking price reductions at their highest for five years, says Rightmove
Over a third of properties for sale in the UK have had their original asking prices cut since being listed, says the latest Rightmove house price index. At 37% of all existing homes for sale, this is the highest proportion dropping their prices during the autumn months for five years (see graph below), the portal says. This pushed down asking prices by 0.8% during October, the index shows, with price reductions heaviest at the top of property ladder. Rightmove says it’s a buyers’ market now and that vendors should be “wary of over-pricing” and that holding out for a Stamp Duty reduction in next week’s Budget statement to boost buyer activity. Price cutting following the Summer market high-point is a pre-Xmas tradition within the property market but the proportion of homes for sale being cut in price has been rising over the past three years and is now at a peak. “In the run-up to the festive season many sellers are trying to tempt distracted buyers to look at their property by dangling the bauble of more attractive pricing given the quieter time of year and more challenging market,” says Miles Shipside (pictured, right). “Many sellers who have been on…
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