Ignore the negative market headlines because the UK’s property market is booming – if you know where to look.
Lomond says it wants to “counterpunch” a gathering storm of negative headlines focused on the UK property sector by pointing out that its letting portfolio has increased 8%, while sales have topped £267m in Q2 2023.
In its latest quarterly insight report, the company urges vendors, buyers, tenants and landlords to hold firm amid tough housing market conditions.
With interest rates the highest they have been this century, so-called ‘doomsayers’ in some parts of the national media have been forecasting the potential for a crash in prices. But that is nonsense, according an estate agency clearly intent in talking up the market.
Lomond’s CEO Ed Phillips said its latest research was a window into the truth behind the headlines and, when viewed in context, the market was proving to be more resilient than the media is claiming.
Lomond says its data-driven research involves more than 60 branches in a network that stretches from Aberdeen to Brighton, with a managed lettings portfolio of more than 40,000.
Drawing on data from market-tracking insights gathered through a new partnership with independent analysts Dataloft, Lomond, the fastest growing estate agency in the UK thanks to a series of merges and acquisitions, which partly explains the growth in sales and letting recorded, is confident its research of underlying trends paints a far more positive picture.
Phillips said: “There’s no denying these are tough times, but sensationalist headlines don’t help anyone.
“We did see a fall in asking prices in May this year with a 4.8% decline since August 2022, but we need to remember last summer saw some frenzied activity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If you dig a little deeper, then you will find prices in May this year were still 13.5% higher than in January 2021.
“Not only that, but all the metrics we monitor were higher in early summer this year than they were in the previous three months.
“Our branches across the UK are reporting more supply coming to the market in terms of instructions and valuations, both in terms of quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.
“Sales exchanges in Q2 2023 are also currently outperforming those in the first three months of this year, and compare well with 2022 while mortgage applications also remain high, suggesting promising activity levels in Q3.”
Other data unearthed in the latest quarterly analysis offers a positive spin on the current state of the market.
Without suggesting any of the figures that are quoted as incorrect, I fear the interpretation of them may be influenced by some business decisions that rely on the market continuing to work at a high level of transactions.
Maybe it is different this time, but I can not see how the higher cost of borrowing leading to a reduced supply of money into the market can not lead to a reduction in demand which history has always shown, leads to decreased prices and number of transactions.
We will see, but history tends to be a good predictor of the future.
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I drilled down into the numbers to the extent where I could see that flats in Wigan were excused from the Fannie Mae crash of 2008, as a result every developer in and around Wigan got into flats and flooded the market with flats and only then did over supply affect prices.
There are over 3000 #local markets and within each #local market there are type and price band sub-markets. Most of the market commentary is bulimic regurgitation of group-think; the Land registry algorithm creates an economic indicator for civil servants to gauge the economy, it is an utterly meaningless gauge of the property market. Not only does it suffer valuation lag ( it only becomes reliable 6 months after the latest month’s data is released on properties listed 9 months ago) but it is incredibly selective in the properties used in the algorithm.
All agents can do is repeat the truth, the numbers you are reading, the commentary you are hearing is a generalisation of what’s happening nationally, THIS is what is happening HERE. Be informed and be professional and be better than those who are not
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Reality is you can only work with what you have and should always prepare for the good and the poor times as often you have no control over the market.
As for price collapse. Utter nonsense. There are many variables to create that and it would need WW3 to affect everyone. Many property prices will never go down = negative equity issues/complications/restrictions to sell. Those who need to move quicker than some will be more competitive (they are always in the market), those that are in no rush, will wait. Sellers being well and truly over optimistic, never move. Buyers who wait for a ‘crash’ are wasting their time.
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