Throughout the first five months of this year, 147,223 homes have sold across England and Wales for an estimated £52.5bn in total – marking both a 54% drop in transactions and a 57% reduction in the total market value of homes sold when compared to the five months prior.
Analysis by Barrows and Forrester also found that both transactions and total market values of homes sold have fallen by more than 50% across every area of England and Wales.
The London market has seen the greatest decline in transaction volumes, with just 15,638 homes sold so far this year, a drop of 57%. The East of England (-56%) and South East (-56%) have also seen some of the largest reductions in transaction levels.
In terms of total market value of homes sold, the East of England has seen the largest decline at 59%, with the South East (-58%) and London (-58%) again placing within the top three.
Despite seeing one of the largest levels of decline in market activity, the South East still ranks top in terms of total homes sold so far this year, with 24,210 transactions completing since the start of January. The North West (19,275) and South West (16,246) also rank within the top three in this respect.
The South East is also home to the most valuable property market, with an estimated £11.2bn worth of property sold so far this year. Similarly, just over £11bn worth of homes have sold across London, with the East of England completing the top three (£6.3bn).
The North East sits bottom of the table, although the region has still seen some £1.3bn worth of property sold since the start of the year.
James Forrester, managing director of Barrows and Forrester, commented: “While the property sector is incredibly fragmented in nature, we’ve seen a worryingly consistent performance across the board when it comes to the reduction in market activity so far this year.
“Not only has there been a drop in the average price a home is selling for across every region, but we’ve also seen transaction levels more than half compared to the back end of last year.
“As a result, the total market value of homes sold has taken a significant hit and this demonstrates the reversal in fortunes that sellers now face, with fewer buyers fighting it out for available stock and doing so at a lower price point than previously.”
Comments (11)
Oh dear, has someone been playing with the random number generator again?
why, when everyone knows the answer is 42?
The total number of transactions in England & Wales divided by the number of people employed as agents to make those transactions go through is possibly the most important number to consider. Apparently, there are double the number of people employed in agency today than before 2003. Prices have more than doubled but commissions have halved.
From 1997 – 2007 the average number of residential sales was just under 1.2 million properties sold per annum.
From 2008 – 2012 the average number of sales was just under 650,000 per annum.
From 2012 – 2022 the average is just under 880,000.
In the Credit Crunch years it was clear that the number of transactions had almost halved.
This time round, before the cost of living crisis & etcetera, the number of transactions was already down on average by 27% on the pre-crunch average.
I have a feeling that it might not be quite as bad as that this time, but it’s not going to be far off. Peak sales completed is usually May, June & July – but being able to see the HMLR figures is delayed. It won’t be until March next year that we can actually see how good or bad 2023 has been.
I really enjoyed being a high street agent in North London in the 1990’s. It was hard work (6 days a week, 12 hours a day) but I had a lot of fun and earned well too.
doh and i thought i was better at selling in the early 00’s… only as good as the economy it seems,.
Tiny agent in the middle of nowhere issues another “no news” release.
In other news, Mr Nobody loves to stroke his own ego.
and King Canute is sitting on the beach bossing the sea about
No reference made to Truss dismantling Q4 business last year so it won’t be until Q3/Q4 this year will we really understand the impact- this article is half of the story!
Strange that a 2 office estate agency in the Midlands is able to make such swathing comments about the national market without any mention of the impact in their own area. Perhaps they would be better checking the grammar on their own website.
Correction. Sales agreed for this year are 4004. An increase of 21%. Which is still the news we need. (Just had my coffee )
I have to assume that this data is on completions not sales agreed as it doesn’t clearly state it. And if so it’s not exactly new news. Every first quarter relative to every last quarter will always show a huge drop every single year. Every Estate Agent business owner or commission earner knows that every single year the first quarter is the hardest one to deal with financially. So why does this piece of non-news have to be published now? Why don’t you publish the number of sales agreed in the first five months compared to the last five months of 2022. That will give you a much more accurate assessment of the current market conditions. For example in the area I work during the last five months of last year there were 3,305 sales agreed on RM, as opposed to 4,788 during the first five months of this year. An increase of 45%! Much more useful information and with no agenda. Doom-monger articles are now getting boring and out of date. These are ACTUAL figures as of this morning that anyone who has a RM account can verify in RM Plus. I know bad news sells but having been doing this for over 40 years I have seen bad stats create self-fulfilling prophecies too many times! Come on PIE, support your industry by producing some positive articles of actual current stats not stats that are non-news. Or at least give some perspective as to what the average drop off for the same period is for the last 10 years. Sensationalism at its worst.
I track completions data (not SSTC billshut & b0ll0cks) to figure out what’s going on and what agents are earning. I’ve been doing that since 1999, long enough to have tracked and plotted what was going on ahead of the Fannie Mae crash to have predicted the event to my sales team with enough time to take the company and our customers safely through the last lean times.
In October last year I posted the same pattern was repeating, not based on a single set of data but a build up of the previous 12 months data. Agent incomes based on completion values, transaction volumes and the lasted approximation of average agent fees are down to levels experienced in 2008/2009
Positive news from Eye will not change what’s already happened or what needs to be changed. The country has been put through 8 years of unwise economic manipulation, the shambles of the SDLT holidays and now the property market is suffering the aftershocks and uncertainty of all that.
FAO Mary Whitehouse Bill Shut isn’t a bad word