A Confident Start to Autumn – Housing Market Update
Welcome to our monthly housing market update, based on data provided by some 200 sales and lettings Propertymark accredited agents giving a unique ‘inside track’ into the housing market.
There’s always a time lag with Propertymark reports as agents ensure sales and rental deals follow through and complete: this report refers to August, but the trends are ones which suggest an active and strong market throughout autumn. Let’s dive in.
Housing market sales figures
The volume for the month – around 105,000 housing market sales in total across the UK – is almost 10% higher than in August 2023.
For the second month in a row the average number of new prospective buyers registered per Propertymark member branch is 71. This is slightly better than the typical summer figure. The fact that it is higher than June and shows no dip from July. Despite August being the peak the holiday season – is another sign of strong activity.
There was an increase in the average number of viewings per property, from about 3.1 in July to 3.8 in the following month. Again, this bucks the typical August holiday figure.
Meanwhile the number of homes for sale is on the way up with an average of 48 properties for sale at each member branch. This is the highest number for two years.
What does this housing market data mean?
The obvious headline from this collective housing market data is ‘the autumn selling season started early’!
This isn’t simply talking up the housing market. Other figures back up the suggestion that both buyers and sellers are generally feeling more confident than they have been for some time.
For example, there’s been a large fall in mortgage repossessions. The figure has been consistently low anyway, despite high interest rates, but this drop is the first for six months.
Likewise, Propertymark reports a rise in the number of market appraisals (which happen at the start of the sales journey, sometimes months before a property goes to market). The increase is from an average of 23 per branch to 31 – and this was despite the summer holidays.
The rental market
There’s no surprise in the lettings’ data – and sadly that means more bad news for those who want to see a healthy private rental sector. The trend of rental demand running far ahead of supply has dominated lettings in recent years, and it’s back with a vengeance.
In August the average number of new prospective tenants registered per member branch rose from 88 to 112. At least supply rose too, but from an extremely low base. From 11 available properties per branch to just 12.
That ratio of about nine prospective tenants competing for each available rental home is frightening. We’ve explored many times the fact that this inevitably means rising rents, worsened by some landlords selling up because tax changes and stricter regulation make the buy to let landscape much tougher than before.
Although rent arrears increased slightly in August, they involve only 2.6% of tenants. Perhaps that’s the most remarkable and encouraging figure in our lettings report given the tough position many renters are in, often outside the control of the landlords.
Elephant in the room
We haven’t mentioned one big event coming up on October 30 – the new government’s first Budget. There’s plenty of ‘will they … won’t they’ speculation on what will happen but I’m not joining the party as in reality we don’t know!
What the government has already indicated, however, is that there will be tax rises, and the measures will be tough.
Key to the rest of this year’s housing market will be how much the Budget dents the
public’s confidence. This is a precious commodity for the housing market, as it gives people the belief that they can go ahead and move home.
We will know soon, and I’ll be back with my take, and Propertymark’ s, on what it all means. Until then…
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Last Updated: November 4th, 2024
