Reasons to be cheerful as we approach spring
This week’s property market round-up includes analysis from Andrew Beadnall of Beadnall Copley estate agents, who believes we have reasons to be cheerful.
He says: “The property market has always been driven by confidence and nothing stalls the market more than uncertainty – be that economic, political or pandemic.
“With the rollout of the various vaccines in full swing and announcement by the Bank of England that they are expecting a strong bounce back in the economy in spring there are definite reasons to be cheerful from a housing market point of view.
“Following the exit from the first lockdown we saw a huge jump in new buyer registrations, viewings and offers with the majority of new properties coming on to the market not only selling quickly but receiving multiple bids and in most cases either achieving their asking price or over.”
He points to a property in Bramham, which sold for four per cent above asking price, and a detached home on St Winifred’s Road in Harrogate, which hit the dizzy heights of 29 per cent over asking price.
“With demand pent up again, we currently have over 1,800 buyers registered, which equates to 27 per property, which means the return of a genuine booming and blooming spring market is very much on the cards,” says Andrew.
“The expectation is that there will be an influx of new properties to the market with lots of potential sellers having held off from marketing their properties due to the current lockdown. With more people receiving the vaccine day by day, confidence is starting to return about moving onwards and upwards. Our advice is very much that if you are considering selling then beat the competition and start the process of getting your property ready to go on the market now.”
The latest Home.co.uk asking price index concurs with Andrew Beadnall’s findings and shows that the northern property markets continue to indicate “phenomenal 12-month growth”, with the Yorkshire and Humber region having a year-on-year price growth of 9.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, rents are rising in the regions with yearon-year changes in double figures owing to a dramatic shortage of stock to let. In common with many other areas, Yorkshire has seen a 45 per cent drop in the number of homes to let and a 15.4 per cent rise in rents.
Home.co.uk say that until supply increases, and this is not expected in the immediate future, rents will continue to rise sharply.
Over at Rightmove, the latest house price index shows that Yorkshire prices rose by 0.1 per cent over the past month, up
2.8 per cent on last year. The average time to sell is 64 days. The neighbouring North West had a
2.5 per cent monthly gain and a
7.3 per cent annual increase. The North East showed a 2.2 per cent monthly rise in asking prices and a 5.4 per cent rise.
Rightmove says that the number of new buyers continues to grow, despite it now being too late for most to beat the stamp duty deadline.
The first week in February
2021 versus the same period in 2020 recorded Rightmove visits up 45 per cent, with keen homehunters sending 18 per cent more enquiries to agents. The number of purchases agreed were up by seven per cent.
High demand appears to be outstripping supply and pushing up prices as new seller numbers are 21 per cent down on the same time last year.