The UK property market weekly report for the third week of January 2024, continues to paint a sturdy picture of the UK Property Market with key headlines reporting…

Headlines:

+ 17% more listings than last week

+ 20% more gross sales than last week

+ 28% more net sales than last week

+ 17% drop in sale fall throughs from last week

(Not forgetting that week before was a record week for home sales)

Christopher Watkin and this week’s special guest Bryan Mansell pore over the UK property market numbers in the weekly ‘UK Property Market Stats Show’. They analyse the stats for Week three of 2024 (Week ending Sunday 21st January 2024) and what that means for estate agents and the property market as a whole.

+ New properties to the market (Listings): New listings last week were 33,284 (Average for week 3 in the previous eight years 31,017). YTD, we are on 82,316 listings, higher than the eight-year average for Wk.3 of 73,841

+ Average Listing Price: The average listing price this week was £421,102.

+ % Difference between Listing and Sale Agreed Prices: This week, it’s 22.2% – would prefer to see that in the mid teens. Needs watching.

+ Price Reductions: 17,164 price reductions were seen last week (decent number). The Wk 3 average in the previous 8 years- 13,107. UK Estate Agents are reducing 1 in 8 of their stock per month on these levels

+ Average Asking Price of Properties Being Reduced: This week’s average asking price of reduced properties was £394,933.

+ Number of Properties Sold (Gross Sales): Gross sales continue to do well. Total number of gross sales in the UK last week was 21,678 (19.7% more sales than last week). For comparison, the eight-year average for this week is 22,989, and that includes the crazy years of 2021 and 2022, which would’ve dragged up the actual average.

+ Accumulative Gross Sales YTD: Year to date, there has been a total of 50,806 properties sold stc. In comparison, by Wk3 YTD average for 2017/8/9 &20 was 47,996.

+ Average Asking Price of Properties Sold STC this Week: The average asking price of properties sold last week was £344,661, very similar to the level seen in the last half of 2023.

+ Sale Fall Throughs (Units): There were 5,002 Sale Fall Throughs. The 2023 weekly average for the whole year was an average of 5,382.

+ Sale Fall Through (%): The Sale Fall Through Rate is the number of ‘sales fall thru’ for the week expressed as a percentage of Gross Sales for the week. This week, it was at 23.07% (a proportional reduction of 17.3% to last week)

+ Net Sales This Week (Standalone): Net Sales this week (Wk 3) 16,676. The eight-year average for this time of year (week 2) is 17,915, which includes the bumper years of 2021 and 2022. The average normal years (2017/18/19/20 was 17,147). Interestingly, in those years, the sale fall through rate (as above) was 20.6%, meaning fall through rates percentages are still slightly higher today than they were pre-pandemic. Need to keep an eye on that.

+ Net Sales YTD: Net Sales YTD is 36,558. We are 101.5% of 2017/18/19 YTD Net Sales.

Local Focus – Bryan and Chris spent the last 20 minutes of the show looking at the Crewe property market to ascertain who is the best Estate and Letting Agent in the town.

Watkin’s final thoughts: “We are only three weeks into a New Year and things are looking pretty good. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves and take each week as it comes. Prospect like hell, list well and get them sold.”