The number of applicants registering with estate agents soared again last month, while the supply of property for sale rose only marginally.
According to the NAEA’s latest report, the average number of home hunters registered per branch went from 313 in March to 392 in April.
The average number of properties available for sale went up from 42 to 45 over the same period.
Sales per branch fell slightly, dropping from ten in March to nine in April.
The NAEA said: “The supply crisis continues to affect the market. As a comparison, in April 2013, NAEA members reported 61 properties available per branch.”
Separately, haart said that in the year to April, new buyer registrations at its branches rose 9.4% while supply fell 1.7%.
Coutts, the Queen’s bank, weighed in with the comment that house prices “look fully valued on a long-term basis”. The bank said it expects further price appreciation in the second half of 2014, and said that the ripple effect of house price appreciation was spreading out of London to the regions.
Meanwhile, the Council for Mortgage Lenders reported that mortgage lending last month was the highest for any April since 2008.
Lending was up 8% compared with March, to an estimated total of £16.6bn.
The CML said it was too early to assess the impact of the Mortgage Market Review, which was not implemented until the end of the month – although a number of lenders had changed their rules ahead of it.
According to HMRC, 94,960 homes were sold in the UK in April. This was up from 72,180 in April last year, but far short of the figure of 126,450 homes sold in April 2007.
Comments (5)
Whilst mortages are tight, lets bring back chains. But make the main links agents working together. Good old fashioned agency has a lot to bring to todays high tech agency models.
Thanks ''ampersat'' the point you raise about local agents collaborating is a very valid one and yes local B2B property sharing in many agents opinion is the way forward from current main portals controlling the market.
Im wondering if ''ampersat'' is the agent I didnt recognise at our yesterday meeting in Baker Street, if so I hope that you now see that INEA isnt trying to rule the world, but instead in many areas were now growing pockets of 2-3-4-5 agent mini clusters where sharing their listings (selling on extended vendor exposure) means consumers do better. As such we often sit in the background linking agents who rather than having a shortage of stock mass increase their offering to 80-100 local listings. Simply by agents collaborating.
The above article reads that NAEA reports more applicants coming on than listings agents have available. As buyers need to more often sell due to mortgage shortages, it makes sense for agents to truely group and convert those looking to buy into sellers. Any agent saying ''sorry we havent got'' should really be saying ''we work with other agents, let me call you back after I see what else is out there''
Collaboate and find applicants stock that shared comms can be earnt from and the result is that happy applicant buyers may just place their home up for sale with you.
I am not sure it is the only way Trevor but it certainly is one way and a good one.
As for ruling the world just you be content with the good things people were saying about you and build on that. I was talking to one chap there and what you are doing obviously works very well for him and the agents he is already linked to. He needs an agent contact in the SW postcodes, that is possibly more achievable than the world.
Wot no comment from Trevor? Come on Mr Mealham of all the stories you ought to be posting on this is it.
Your core product; the sharing of properties between agencies is absolutely bang on the money for solving this problem. It helps agents with smaller property registers to work together and therefore mutually benefit from a larger offering and coverage both geographically and vertically ( same area different price bands)
You can get upset with me if you like Trevor but if you just set out to solve this one issue some agents face and help them compete with larger Agencies or corporate competitors there is a little niche for your product. I was in London yesterday and heard first hand from Agents that had similar size portfolios to Gary at Beauchamp but with property values about 1/10th of the stuff he is selling and at commission rates a half or quarter of that in "in Town" due to the levels of competition. Those agents need to work together not against each other to get commission levels up and that requires them to quietly work together for each others benefit. I thought of you yesterday and again this morning. If I might be so bold you are missing a trick here Trevor.
Agents linked by your software but not quite on the grand scale of INEA might be the way to go. Let agents hook up with each other and leave it at that. Who knows bigger things might come your way in the future.
Hopefully that doesn't sound like a EAT roasting, it isn't intended as such.
………And some agents are still posting on other stories and threads that they need Zoopla!! If anything this article seems a bit conservative on its' supply and demand stats.