This week’s UK Property Market Stats Show for the week ending Sunday 25th August features special guest Rob Smith, chief boss man for Hunters, Whitegates and Northwoods.

The headlines:

Listings – 34.8k UK listings this week. 7.6% higher YTD than 2017/18/19 YTD average & 11.2% higher than Week 34 of 2023.

Total Gross Sales – 25.3k – 24.9% higher than the same week (week 34) in 2023. Also, 6.8% higher than 2017/18/19 YTD levels & 12.3% higher than 2023 YTD levels.

Net Sales – 19k this week, 34% higher than the same week in 2023 & still 14.7% higher YTD in 2024 compared to YTD 2023.

Percentage of homes exchanging Vs homes unsold – YTD 2024, 52.82% of UK homes that left UK Estate Agents books exchanged contracts, the remaining 47.18% were withdrawn off the market, unsold. In essence you a flip of the coin chance of actually selling, homeowners moving and the estate agent getting paid.

UK House Prices – on the 89k UK house in August MTD, the Sale Agreed £/sq.ft remained at £341/sq.ft. Identical to July ’24 and 2.72% higher than those achieved 12 months ago.

Sale Fall-Throughs – sale fall throughs (as a % of gross sales agreed) dropped to 25.1% this week. The 7 year Long Term Average is 24.2% and it was 40%+ in the two months following the Truss Budget in the Autumn of 2022.

Chris’ In-Depth Analysis for Week 34 :

New Properties to Market: The UK saw 34,766 new listings, which is still around 10% higher than expected (see the listing graphs). This year’s YTD listings stand at 1,199,201; 9.3% higher than the historical 8 year YTD average of 1,086,672, 7.2% higher than YTD 2017/18/19 and 7.6% higher YTD 2023. Just FYI – Weekly 2024 average : 35,271.

Average Listing Price: £407,655 (2024 weekly average – £438,037)

Average Asking Price of this week’s Listings vs Average Asking Price of the Properties that Sale Agreed this week: 15.1%. This is great to see it’s not been the 20%’s for a few weeks. The long-term 8 year average is between 16% and 17%. (Weekly 2024 average 22.1%)

Price Reductions: This week, 20,540 properties saw price reductions, higher compared to the 8-year Week 34 average of 16,637. Yet there are higher stock levels. Stock end of month July 2024 (latest data) levels are at 715,828. This means that ONLY 1 in 8.3 properties each month are being reduced. Is that enough? I don’t think so!

Average Asking Price for Reduced Properties this week: £384,868. (2024 weekly average – £397,786)

Gross Sales: 25,351 properties were sold stc last week (2% higher than last week). 2024 weekly average : 24,757 Gross Sales)

Accumulative Gross Sales YTD: The total YTD stands at 841,733, exceeding the average YTD Gross sales figure of 787,834 from 2017/18/19 and 750,133 in the same week 34 in 2023.

Sale Through rate: (NEW MONTHLY STAT) : UK Estate Agents sold 15.47% of their residential sales stock in July ’24. (7 year average 17.9% per month – yet don’t forget that was mid 20%s in the crazy years of 20/21/22) (2017/18/19 average was 15.57% per month).

Average Asking Price of Sold STC Properties: Still staying in the £350/370k’s range (like has been for 2 years) at £354,278.

Sale Fall Throughs: Fall throughs this week at 6,363 – very similar to last week. Last 3 months weekly average 6,249 and 2024 YTD weekly average is 5,658.

Sale Fall Through % Rate: 25.1% for week 34. (Comparison – 24.6% for the last 3 months, whilst the long term 8 years average is 24.2% & it was 40%+ in Q4 2022 in the Truss budget!).

Sale Fall Through as a % of Sales Pipeline (NEW STAT) – 5.66% of July’s Sales pipeline fell thru (8 year average 5.32%) – Conclusion – even though we are getting higher fall through rates because the sales pipeline is higher, it just shows looking at the graph that everything is okay (look at the yellow long-term trend line).

Net Sales (Gross sales this week less fall thrus this week) – 18,988.

Accumulative Net Sales YTD: The total stands at 649,351, still 4.6% higher than the 17/18/19 YTD Net sales average (620,860) and 14.7% higher than the YTD figure for 2023 for Net Sales (565,968).

The local focus this week was Thetford.

Estate agents warned on overvaluing property as buyers faced with ‘much greater choice’