Election bounce sends price of a home rocketing £7,000 in month
A POST-ELECTION bounce has seen the average price of a home rise to £306,810.
A report from Rightmove recorded a rise of nearly £7,000 from December 13 – the day after the General Election – to January 15.
The 2.3 per cent upswing is the biggest month-on-month increase at this time of year since its records began in 2002.
The large monthly jump helped to push the annual rate of growth in asking prices to 2.7 per cent, the highest level since July 2017.
Miles Shipside, Rightmove director, said: “These statistics seem to indicate that many buyers and sellers feel that the election result gives a window of stability.
“The housing market dislikes uncertainty and the unsettled political outlook since the EU referendum caused some potential home-movers to hesitate. There now seems to be a release of this pent-up demand, which suggests we are in store for an active spring market.
“The early birds are on it, with more than 1.3 million buyer inquiries to agents since the election, up 15 per cent on the same period a year ago. Some buyers have snapped up a property already, with the number of sales agreed up 7.4 per cent on last year.”
He added: “While there may well be more twists and turns to come in the Brexit saga, there is now an opportunity for sellers to get their property on the market for a spring move.”
Mark Manning, managing director of Yorkshire estate agents Manning Stainton, said: “We sold more properties than in any other December since 2004.”
Marc von Grundherr, a director at Benham and Reeves, in London, said: “We have seen a post-election bounce.
“Things usually quieten down before Christmas, but we had three times the number of offers in the last two weeks of December than the first two weeks.
“People have been waiting for stability, and the moment it arrived, confidence in the market has increased significantly.
“There has been a dramatic Boris bounce, with real optimism among buyers still getting good value.”