House prices rocket as market sees spring surge
SPRING home buyers are facing the highest-ever prices demanded by sellers, with the average price tag on a home having jumped by nearly £7,000 in the space of a month.
Across Britain, the increase of £6,733 or 2.1% month-onmonth pushed average seller asking prices to a new record high of £327,797 in April, property agents Rightmove said. This was more than £4,000 higher than a previous record set last October.
The average asking price for larger ‘top of the ladder’ familysized properties jumped by more than £18,000 month-onmonth, from £571,983 in March to £590,293 in April.
Top of the ladder homes are made up of houses and flats with five bedrooms or more as well, as four-bedroom detached properties.
Properties generally are being snapped up by buyers at a record speed, Rightmove said.
The property market in Devon and Cornwall has been red hot, with agents reporting that houses were selling after purchasers have only viewed them by video tour. The whole of the region is in demand, but seaside areas like Newquay and Dartmouth have been manic.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data, said: “This is only the second time over the past five years that prices have increased by over 2% in a month, so it’s a big jump.”
Mr Bannister added: “This spring surge means that it’s a good time to come to market and achieve a good price and a quick sale, especially if you don’t have an onward purchase.”
SPRING home buyers are facing the highest-ever prices demanded by sellers, with the average price tag on a home having jumped by nearly £7,000 in the space of a month.
Across Britain, the increase of £6,733 or 2.1% month-on-month pushed average seller asking prices to a new record high of £327,797 in April, online property agency Rightmove said. This was more than £4,000 higher than a previous record set last October.
The average asking price for larger ‘top of the ladder’ family-sized properties jumped by more than £18,000 month-on-month, from £571,983 in March to £590,293 in April.
Top of the ladder homes are made up of houses and flats with five bedrooms or more as well as four-bedroom detached properties.
Properties generally are being snapped up by buyers at a record speed, Rightmove said. In the first two weeks of April, estate agents were marking homes as sold in 45 days on average and nearly one in four (23%) properties that had a sale agreed in March had been on the market for less than a week. Both these figures were the highest that Rightmove has ever recorded.
Rightmove said the “mass market” of two and three-bedroom semidetached homes tend to be selling the fastest, with 30% of those that are being marked as sold by agents having been on the market for less than a week.
The recent extension of a stamp duty holiday, the return of some low-deposit mortgages, optimism over the coronavirus vaccination roll-out and a shortage of properties for sale have pushed up house price momentum, Rightmove said.
Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s director of property data, said: “This is only the second time over the past five years that prices have increased by over 2% in a month, so it’s a big jump, especially bearing in mind that the lockdown restrictions are still limiting the population’s movements and activities.”
He added: “The fast pace of the current market means that each week another activity record on Rightmove tumbles. Wednesday, April 7, set a record of over 9.3 million visits to Rightmove, and March saw time spent on the site surpass two billion minutes in a month for the first time.
“This spring surge means that it’s a good time to come to market and achieve a good price and a quick sale, especially if you don’t have an onward purchase.”
Mr Bannister continued: “Housing market activity remains high in Scotland, where there has been no extension to the land and buildings transaction tax holiday which has now come to an end, which suggests that the same could happen when the tax holidays start to come to an end in England and Wales from the end of June.
“These rising prices will cause some buyer affordability challenges, as mortgage lending criteria are still constrained,” he added, “and the record low available stock proportion will make it difficult for buyers to find the right property. Being able to act quickly when the right one does come along is vital.”