Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
HOUSING BOOM
Stamp duty cuts send city market into ‘overdrive’ Interest from buyers and sellers ‘highest in years’ Property prices pick up for first time in months
The housing market in Canterbury is experiencing an extraordinary boom which hasn’t been seen in years, according to stunned estate agents.
The Chancellor’s announcement of a stamp duty holiday on property sales of up to £500,000 last week has resulted in a surge of inquiries.
It is also being bolstered by Londoners looking to relocate to the Canterbury area to work from home, rather than endure the commute.
Strutt and Parker director Simon Backhouse says the buoyant market is benefiting from a “Covid bubble”. “The market is very active at the moment, the like of which I haven’t seen for some years,” he said. “It’s really busy on all fronts and price levels.
“It is also being fuelled by the frustration of coming out of Brexit and then the Covid lockdown.
“We have a lot of interest from buyers coming out of London who have realised they don’t need to commute into town every day and don’t want to be on public transport any more. “They want to live in the country and the technology now allows them to do that and this trend is definitely happening very quickly.
“We are seeing more best offer situations where we have several buyers after the same property which will often achieve sales over the guide price. “Even the very top end of the £2 million plus market is very lively indeed.”
But Mr Backhouse warned the market may “harden later in the year as we see redundancies”. David Mansfield who manages the Canterbury branch of Bairstow Eves says the market has “gone into overdrive”.
“It fired up pretty quickly as soon as we came out of lockdown but we’ve seen it ramp up even more since the stamp duty announcement,” he said. “We are getting a flood of properties coming to market from buyers who tell us they are serious about moving.
“It’s gone into overdrive and we have been doing lots of new valuations with often several buyers showing interest in the same property, which is keeping prices firm.”
Charlie Bainbridge, director of Broad Street-based estate agents Charles Bainbridge, says June 2020 was busier than the same month last year.
“It sounds really weird and bizarre but the market is healthy,” he said.
“For some properties we’ve been getting in excess of the asking price.”
The average property price in Canterbury is now £335,873, according to Zoopla. This is 4.25% down since 12 months ago - but a rise of 0.36% since April. Mr Bainbridge said: “March and April is naturally when things start to kick on, but obviously they couldn’t. So now that rush has been come into force and effectively caused a bottleneck of interest.
“And post-lockdown there’s more interest from people living in London wanting to move to Canterbury.”
Chris Murphy, branch manager at Sandersons estate agents, says they have also had a “surge in interest” - particularly from Londoners. “We’ve definitely had a big bounce back,” he said.
One of the sites gaining attention is the Saxon Fields estate behind Cockering Road in Thanington, where 750 homes are being built. Karrina Oki, sales and marketing director at Pentland Homes, says they have seen an uptake in reservations. “The stamp duty announcement has unlocked a whole host of demand from across the buying spectrum,” she said. Managing director of Kent Estate Agencies, Caroline Wellard, says the number of sellers starting to market their properties has almost doubled since last week.
Rishi Sunak’s decision to axe the tax until April 2021 means buyers will save thousands of pounds.
For example, prior to the announcement, they would have paid an additional £5,000 on top of a £300,000 purchase. Mr Bainbridge added: “It’ll make a big impact. My advice to anyone is to capitalise on the stamp duty holiday and make hay while the sun shines - we’re on a crest of wave at the moment.”