Propertymark has published its September housing report and questions whether the market is now showing signs of softening.
What properties sold for:
In September, 47 per cent of agreed sales were made at the original asking price.
Propertymark says his could signal the end of bidding wars as agreed sales at over the asking price have dropped to 27 per cent, from 37 per cent in August.
Sales agreed:
Activity is still strong as the number of sales agreed per branch rose 22%, from 9 in August to 11 in September.
Sales to FTB:s
The quantity of sales made to first time buyers is holding steady at 27 per cent, a slight fall from the 28 per cent figure in August.
The quantity of buy-to-let sales fell from 11 per cent in August to 9 per cent in September.
Supply of available properties:
The number of properties being marketed was 23 per branch in September, the same as in August.
This figure is uncharacteristically low and year-on-year is a 44 per cent decrease from September 2020.
Demand from house hunters
The average number of house hunters registered per estate agent branch stood at 458 in September, an increase from 435 in August and 428 in July.
Nathan Emerson, Chief Executive, Propertymark comments:
“Figures from September tell an interesting story of a market that may be beginning to shift.
“Sales being agreed has increased, but the number of sales achieving over the asking price has reduced, meaning we may start to see an end to the bidding wars that have been so prevalent.
“It’s also interesting to note that although the number of properties available to buy is lower than we have seen before in September, it hasn’t dropped since August meaning that just enough properties are coming to market to satisfy demand.”
Comments (7)
Robert
It’s really interesting indeed as I do suspect your “log jam” comment is right on the money and sadly I thinks it’s exceptionally hard for an individual agent or even the solicitor to resolve as there isn’t enough visibility of the chain, habits, motivations of buyers and sellers to accurately measure or predict a chain can complete.
I suspect the solution is to have a fully visible service that all buyers and sellers can see, understand and in the right way (no doubt the biggest challenge, to educate) how long it will take to complete and why it’s being held up and what can be done.
I’m clearly a huge supporter of anyone who can help and deliver that kind of service as it significantly helps agents and consumers
I will post a photo on twitter Gary
I agree with Robert that the figures quoted by Propertymark are perhaps some way wide of the mark – excuse the pun. However, in their defence, if it is presumably done from their monthly survey of member agents it may be that – heaven forbid – the agents have not been completely honest!
Perhaps if we look at Rightmove’s stats and I can only speak of my county of Norfolk, where the whole county shows 12,295 on the market of which only 3,414 are for sale, the rest being either sale agreed/under offer or sold – less than 30% available. In my ‘patch’ which includes a large area covered by post code, IP25, there are 90 available for sale out of a total of 283 – similarly around 30%. In more normal times the number of properties on the market in this area would be around 750-900 and some 450-500 might be for sale. (These numbers obviously can include properties which are available on a multiple agency basis so some duplication may occur).
With average for sale stock per office around single figures, the ‘fat’ of 2020/21 may have to sustain us for some months to come and I am sure our “friends” at Rightmove will not wish to make too much comment on these stats or offer us any respite from the huge monthly costs for a handful of properties.
If not already, the hatches may have to be battened down over the forthcoming winter months and beyond.
Merry Christmas – but at least we won’t have to pay out for any presents because Mr Amazon can’t get them here.
25-30% available stock is the pattern in most outcode areas. The numbers are so noticeable we are trying to figure out an “aged sale report” to show just how long some sales have been dragging on.
The market will not resolve itself without agents doing what they last had to do in 1988, renegotiate deals as prices rise, change out buyers who will never complete or vendors facing delayed completions on new build
Whenever a market is artificially stimulated the natural volume of transaction is affected. The additional transactions of Stamp duty holiday and people bringing forward plans to buy away from the cities is a massive demand push that will not be resolved by waiting for homes to be listed on portals. Sales and chains that cannot complete don’t pay
Where are these numbers coming from? The total number of listings per agent, for sale and SSTC, has from, what I can see, fallen from over 30 per branch to 9. Of that more than half of listings are sale agreed.
There seems to be a log jam of properties that are effectively now off the market, not available for others to view or offer on that are just going to sit there while negotiators wait for the market to resolve itself.
I spoke an applicant yesterday, she’s been sale agreed for ages, she can’t find anywhere to buy. She looks at Rightmove 3 times a day but nothing suitable is coming on. She’s not fussed she’s not moving till she finds somewhere. I had a look there are homes for her to buy, they’re sale agreed to someone else and have been for quite a while.
Seems like the market is snarled up like the traffic system in Barnstaple, where the car that’s blocking you can’t move because someone’s blocking them.
It might be time for agents to look at the sales they’ve arranged and wonder if it’s a sale that will ever complete. That is going to mean some disappointed and angry buyers and agents but until all these chains complete 95% of the agents involved are not getting paid
You make an excellent point re snarled up chains and pipelines. I wonder if agents really looked at their currently over-inflated pipelines and considered how many of these will actually complete – whether that be waiting on a ‘unicorn’ onward purchase, a new build to complete or other – how much the real value differs
Some ZPG numbers showed up there could be about 120,000 too few properties. It’s unlikely that’s 120,000 links missing from a single chain so the number of transactions affected could be a lot higher.
The shortage of cement, timber and sheet insulation has the construction industry saying new build won’t be back to full capacity till 2026 [that affects about 60,000 homes in a normal market] With potentially 60,000 ‘end node’ transactions facing long delays it means agreeing sales and reviewing existing sales requires extra scrutiny