Estate agents have 8% fewer new instructions than this time a year ago, Rightmove reported this morning, as the property drought continues to tighten its grip and sellers stay away.
Miles Shipside, Rightmove’s director and housing market analyst, said there was a “vicious cycle of not enough property on the market to meet demand, increasing prices and a reluctance among home owners to come to market if they think the prospects of finding and funding their next move are severely compromised”.
The Rightmove report points to three reasons why would-be sellers are reluctant to put their homes on the market.
According to research among sellers who were seriously considering a move, they either cannot find anywhere they want to buy, cannot find a property they can afford or simply believe the cost of moving is too high.
Shipside said: “(The stay-away sellers) could be helping to get the country’s limited property stock circulating, but they have concerns about coming to market, deepening the supply shortages affecting many areas.”
The report also said that the continuing imbalance between supply and demand in the property market has led to the strongest August price performance since 2007.
Between July and August the price of property new on the market dipped by just 0.8%, bucking an eight-year trend post-recession of larger summer holiday price drops.
The average national asking price for new properties now stands at £292,284 compared to £294,542 in July, but still up 6.4% up on August 2014.
The average UK estate agent now has 65 properties for sale on their books at any one time, with time on the market averaging 65 days.
Broken down into regions, asking prices have generally dropped month-on-month in the south and risen in the north.
Between July and August prices dropped 1.2% in the east of England and the south-east, 1.3% in Greater London and 1.4% in the east midlands and the south-west.
In the west midlands prices rose by 0.1%, by 0.2% in Wales, 0.5% in the north-west and by 1.2% in the north-east.
However, many agents said they sensed a desire to sell among many owners, even if those owners were being held back by the reasons mentioned above.
Mark Manning, director of Manning Stainton in Leeds, Harrogate, Wetherby and Wakefield, said: “In July the number of appraisals that we carried out was 21% higher than usual, so there’s definitely a sense that there are a greater number of people who are considering selling.
“With regards to stock level, it’s not that there’s no stock, it’s just that when good property does come on, the demand is so high that it’s selling much more quickly than usual.”
Comments (9)
This summer I have found an increase in vendors requesting for our agency not to put their property on Rightmove and wanting to avoid internet portals all together. Although I do encourage the vendors to make the most of the web sites, we have been selling more and more without the internet, taking estate agency back to the basics from pre-internet times. The internet is a tool for our estate agents and not the be all and end all. Therefore, I suggest that Rightmove’s comment that “Estate agents have 8% fewer new instructions than this time a year ago” could be distorted if they are only using Rightmove data to make this judgement. I am only going by my own experience as a local independent and wonder how many other agents are finding the same at the moment….?
The supply in some places on the south coast is so low that prices have skyrocketed. Properties that were priced at a sensible £230-240k are now on the market for £270-280k. They are getting offers and the sales are completing. I haven’t seen anything like this for years.
London is over egged by 16-20% everywhere else is behind by as much as 23%. There will be a mass exodus before interest rate rises hit so expect a lots of interest from London buyers.
I would be very cautious about agreeing sales to anyone who is sale agreed in London, their market might fall away quicker than they can secure an exchange. It won’t take long for buyers surveyors and lenders to catch on.
Agreed. I started as a junior neg in Hackney back in 1991 and sold 3 bed terraced houses for £50-60k. Those same houses are selling for £900,000 or more now – which is bonkers.
Now this is interesting info, AC – and puts a different slant on the billshut that’s being chucked at the wobbly old fan down the other pub.
They’re making a merry old song and dance about the ex-council flat in Covent Garden that has just sold for 9.3 times its’ previous purchase price, made under the RTB scheme way back in 1991.
When you take into account the fact that the flat was ‘discounted’ by probably 50%, then the increase which is being described by the sozzled locals as “ridiculous”, “crazy” and the sellers doing “absolutely nothing to warrant it!” (how the poster can possibly know THAT is beyond me…) – it shows that they should have bought TWO of your properties and would have made virtually TWICE the profit for LESS outlay.
Now – someone remind me – where’s the problem?
..and I’ve posted these comments on the wrong article. Sorry, as you were.
Have I mentioned the word current enough? It’s 9:02am on a Monday morning, shh
I wonder how many Agency principals have read this story and twigged the massive strategic opportunity this offers to them.
In the same way a camel knows to find an Oasis if it wants to drink, buyers know to find an estate agent if they want to buy. It seems sensible to me to test and quantify just how effective the portals are. As Miles points out; this is the first real opportunity to do that since 2007.
Looking a bit too On The Market-y for my liking. Why not just focus on improving the current broken/dated features on the current site?!