INSIDE TODAY’S ‘CRAZY’ PROPERTY MARKET
Houses have sold in as little as six hours in some corners of the overheated Welsh market. Property editor Joanne Ridout reports
ONE buyer described their attempt to move house as “infuriating” in what estate agents are describing as one of the most competitive and fastest moving property markets they have ever experienced.
Worried is how many sellers are feeling – despite seeming to hold the power at the moment, they too have to buy further up the property chain. Estate agents, meanwhile, say work feels more like a call centre as they’re swamped with requests for viewings and multiple offers for homes, many way over the asking price.
In some of the property market’s over-heated pockets in Wales there are stories of houses being put on the market at 9am and being sold by 3pm the same day and of buyers having to offer over asking price just to outbid the opposition. Some houses are sold before viewings have taken place and before buyers have even stepped over the threshold.
James Skudder, company director at estate agency Country Living Group, says his company has already sold a couple of high-end homes where the buyer hasn’t physically seen the property, fuelled by the desire to get onto the fast-moving pace of the up-andcoming market in west Wales.
Mr Skudder said: “Buyers are looking to move to the area as their prime residence, thinking, ‘If I can work from home let’s move to the area we’ve always wanted to live, that we’ve dreamt about’. People are offering on a property before they view it as people are having to show their hand a lot quicker than they would before, and for much more money.”
The company recently sold a dream home within 24 hours of placing it on the market, with the buyer offering £800,000 subject to them viewing it, which they did immediately and cononfirmed their offer there and then n– – done and dusted in 24 hours. Even en then, another buyer offered £25,000 00 over the asking price a few days later ter to try to wrestle it away.
Mr Skudder said: “I’ve not seen en buyer energy like this ever, and the he quality of buyers is 10 times better ter than pre-Covid. Now people who are buying are jumping straight away on properties.”
Richard Golten from Purple Bricks cks agrees, saying the market in Cardiff diff is just as heated: “We’ve seen a large rge rise in offers coming in prior to launch days and before any custommers have seen the property, often at asking price or over. Buyers are doing all they can to secure a home me before the ‘bidding war’ commencces following multiple viewings.”
It’s not only a supply and demand d issue, it’s the added circumstances s of the coronavirus pandemic plus, for the lower end of the market, the freeze on stamp duty for property under £250,000 until July, 1 2021.
Bradley David, director of Chambers agency in Cardiff, says: “The pandemic has sped up the type of properties people are now looking to buy. I’m seeing a lot of people choosing to skip a step or two on the property market, going from something like a one-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom house – I think there is definitely more thought being put into buying something more long term now.”
Location has, of course, always been a driver to moving home but now the type, size and features wanted are driving people to want to move sooner rather than later. Buyers who were thinking of moving out of urban areas at some point in the future are bringing their move forward, people are looking to move back home to Wales and with many buyers now able to work from home the longed–for escape to the country or coast is now a possibility, not a distant retirement dream.
From a buyer’s point of view it can be so disheartening to not even be able to see a house before it’s sold, or having a viewing cancelled at the last moment. And it even happens to the professional house hunters, with a recent episode of Channel 4 property programme Location, Location, Location seeing presenter Phil Spencer meeting a couple of buyers to show them around a house only to find it had already sold. If it can happen to Phil, it can happen to anyone.
Some buyers are finding they’re not even being considered for a viewing if they still have a property to sell, as estate agents become swamped with requests and prioritise viewings based on their clients’ requirements.
Buyer Tracey Moretta is desperate to move to Anglesey. She says: “It’s all a nightmare – I have visited Anglesey for nearly 57 years since
I was very young girl, it’s always been a special place in my heart. It has always been our aim to retire there. The minute anything we a re interested in comes up, it’s gone or goes to sealed bid before we even get a chance to view. Estate agents are always so booked up for viewings, by the time we get an appointment they have gone. It’s driving me mad - I’m ready to move but have nowhere to move to. It’s all very sad what is happening out there, it’s crazy.” Many estate agents are reporting record numbers of requests for viewings, far exceeding any other time period. Mr Golten says recently a property in Roath, Cardiff attracted 100 enquires for a viewing – a record for the company – t that just couldn’t be accommodated. accommodat
He says: “W “We had to do a first-come, fi first-served basis which mean means a lot of prospective buyers bu aren’t able to view a p property they’ve enquired about. ab Our Roath vendor ach achieved 15 offers from separate separa clients which went to best bes and final and achieved significantly sig more than the asking askin price.”
The mark market’s speed and heat leaves buyers who have somethi thing to sell as the le least attractive op option for sellers, who can afford to choose the best b buyer based on th their circums stances and the p price they are w willing to pay.
And while much of this has always been the case, many sellers feel that if they sell too soon they might not then be able to find somewhere to buy and end up, like Kirsty James.
She recalls her close call saying: “When we first started looking we were told that we had to have accepted an offer on our own home before we could even view another that was on the market. We put ours up for sale, it sold six days later via the first viewing.
“We then arranged to view a house that had caught our eye, but hated it. It left us in a position where ours had sold and we hadn’t found anything we liked. We finally found something else and managed to secure it, but six months later we still haven’t moved. It’s infuriating!”
This reluctance of sellers to put their home on the market and step on to the ladder filters into the sometimes brutal supply and demand struggle that is currently happening in many areas of the country, adding heat to the already scorching market in the most popular property pockets. For buyers, even offering over the asking price might not be enough if the figure can easily be beaten by your buying opposition.
Greg Shearman and Karen Ralph are looking to buy around the Usk and Crickhowell areas for a character property with plenty of living space or potential for a garden room – but they are definitely one of many in that particular house hunt.
Mr Shearman: “It’s been a night
mare, we offered £6,000 above asking on one property and then had to say in writing why we wanted the house – I wrote an epic monologue but lost out! We have had an offer accepted on a house in Usk but there is nothing for the vendor to move to so I fear that it won’t happen.”
The couple are not the only buyers offering over the asking price, buying blind or desperately thinking of ways to stand out from the crowd when lobbying a seller. Ross Hooper-Nash, founder and managing director of Jeffrey Ross estate agents, says blind offers are now very common as are offers way over asking, regularly occurring for properties up to £550,000.
Mr Hooper-Nash said: “And leaflet dropping is very common too, we have even had a client ask us to put a family portrait of themselves on a flyer and say why sellers should choose them over others. Typically, where good schools are oversubscribed is where this will happen the most.”
It can sometimes feel like a fight for many buyers, going to war with no idea of the outcome or even if the property in question they are fighting for is ‘the one’. Buyers are reporting increased instances of chains collapsing multiple times, and if you’re trying to buy in Wales from an area across the border that is not quite as red hot, the situation becomes even more challenging.
Susan Tanswell has been looking for a property in the Vale of Glamorgan but she lives in Berkshire, where she says the market is not moving as fast, so she can’t keep up: “We managed to view three houses in a day when lockdown was eased but the estate agents were not happy when we said we hadn’t sold ours and they sold quickly after that.
“We had an offer on ours from someone who hadn’t sold theirs, and then by the time our buyer came back with a serious offer they pulled out again after a week because we didn’t have a property to make an offer on and their buyer had threatened to pull out if they didn’t find somewhere not in a chain! We then had to give up because our daughter was starting school for her GSCE period. We are going to try again next spring when we hope the market may have settled down, I have never seen anything like it!”
Catrin Dhanda has been looking in the Towy Valley for about two years with a budget up to £650,000 but even armed with this budget has struggled: “Properties are appearing on sites in the evening and by the following morning there is a waiting list for viewings. I saw one which appeared last Friday night, spoke to the agent at 9.45am the following morning and six cash buyers were already viewing and 16 more on the waiting list.
“By Monday they had five offers and one significantly above the asking price. Went to full and final offers so we didn’t even bother viewing, as we didn’t want to get into a stressful bidding war.”
Some potential buyers have decided to jump off the out-of-control treadmill, exhausted from being outbid or dragged into a bidding war. One buyer we spoke to offered on a house without viewing it and, while in the process of selling their home, saw the property come off the market because it had been sold to a buyer who had nothing to sell. They were the victims of stealth gazumping.
Mr Hooper-Nash explains the reason why it can be a challenge to get even a viewing on a house at the moment: “In some cases agents have done 30 viewings on one house in a day. Agents are having to restrict viewings as a result, especially with Covid restrictions.
“Multiple buyers are in the same position and therefore we don’t want to push offers too far in excess of the asking price, as bank valuers are more cautious as they work on historic Land Registry data (which is three-tosix months old) in a rising market.
“We have had over 20 viewings and 20 offers on one property. Whilst some people might think this is great for agents, it is difficult as we are having to disappoint many clients and the additional calls, emails and viewings prevent the very best agents from doing high quality agency work and matching applicants with properties. It’s more like a call centre than ever before and without high levels of new stock we are reluctant to recruit as sellers pay the fees, not buyers, and we need more of them.”
This is a sentiment echoed by agents across the country. Martin Jones, residential sales manager at JJ Morris, said: “It’s purely a supply and demand issue. With us, we have an increased number of people relocating here for a family home and usually that means they are able to purchase at or above asking price as Pembrokeshire is still cheaper than large parts of the UK.
“I’ve worked through 2006/07, the last boom period, and what we are seeing now is a far faster moving market, with the majority of sales exceeding an asking price which is already inflated because of demand.”
Chris Hope, senior partner at Dawsons Property, has seen the market scare off many potential buyer-sellers from putting their homes up for sale, meaning supply starts to dwindle: “Any good buyers are genuinely coming out of the buying market as they have been in too many situations of losing their perfect property for a number of reasons. So there are many buyers who have a house to sell but don’t put them available for fear of not finding something suitable, so they just stay put.”
Auctions have traditionally been seen by many potential buyers as a way to maybe find a property bargain and Newport-based Paul Fosh Auctions have seen a flood of buyers bidding online, with their latest auction attracting 3,079 bids across 97 properties from 51 different countries.
But the current main driving force for this elevated level of buyers into the auction world is the avoidance of the potential messiness of a chain that is beginning to increasingly put off buyers and sellers.
Paul Fosh says: “People, in the current buoyant property market and with the cash to spend are certain that if they bid high enough for a property that they desire it will immediately be theirs on the spot at auction, as soon as the ‘virtual’ hammer falls.
“I haven’t experienced this level of strength in the property market since 2007-08 but the difference between then and now is that whereas then the boom was followed by a crash we now have different circumstances. The peak may instead just run out of steam as buyers’ cash reserves dwindle.”
But even if the number of buyers competing for available property begins to slowly decrease, the amount of stock coming onto the market is still so low it is likely to affect the fight for properties for some time to come.
Mr Hooper-Nash says the best advice is to be patient but to also look at properties that have been on the market for more than four weeks. He said: “There is great stock on the market that may have been listed for slightly too much. There is a frenzy early on but people are too quick to look at why a house hasn’t sold but in many cases the price has been pushed too high to begin with.
“I personally bought a house that had been on the market for over 12 months (through a competitor agent) and could not be happier.”