Some parts of the UK property market face a supply shortage with significantly fewer properties listed for sale today compared to 12 months ago.
Research shows that the shortage is a problem facing the house rather than the flat market, and this is something that Neil Harris, director at Cheffins in Newmarket in Suffolk has found.
He said: “There’s a real shortage of houses for sale which means that for every property which does come available, we see huge levels of interest.”
Newmarket has traditionally benefitted from nearby Cambridge’s house price growth, and as the neighbouring city becomes increasingly more expensive, coupled with its fast-growing population and booming economy, Harris reports that a growing number of buyers are now looking at Newmarket in search of more space for their money.
“Similarly, as the days of the five day a week commute appear to be coming to an end, we’ve seen a growth in buyers from London coming to the area, seeking out countryside and village homes at lower price tags,” he added.
Newmarket’s popularity has led to a major supply-demand imbalance in terms of housing stock for sale, which in turn is placing upward pressure on local property prices.
According to Rightmove, Newmarket is currently the top new supply shortage hotspot, seeing the biggest gap over the past year between the number of homes selling and new sellers coming to market.
The property portal reports that the number of sales being agreed in the town is up by 79% on last July, while new sellers putting their properties up for sale is down by 49%.
Harris added: “Now would be a good time for would-be sellers to test the market. With the summer holidays coming to an end we are entering a busy period throughout the autumn as people look to move ahead of Christmas.
“As the international home for horseracing, Newmarket’s strict planning policies have kept new developments to a minimum which has exacerbated the shortage of available stock.
“Whilst there is a handful of new developments around Newmarket, we don’t anticipate a huge amount of development in the pipeline, which will result in prices continuing to grow.”
Comments (1)
We need to see some informed comment on the sale of flats. Anecdotally, despite the large numbers of leaseholders wanting/needing to sell, sales have stalled due to the fallout from the cladding scandal. Sellers can sell because their properties are currently ‘worthless’ and hence they cannot redeem their mortgages, and they face bankruptcy due to the massive ‘fire safety’ service charges and remediation costs. Buyers can’t buy because these flats are unmortgageable. One would think this presents opportunities for landlords to swoop in with low cash offers, but if they can’t cover their mortgages, sellers still can’t sell.
Ultimately, unless the government acts to protect leaseholders, lenders will end up with hundreds of thousands of flats at zero value on their balance sheets, and we all know what happened when that happened last time!