Homeowners don’t even need to advertise as off-market sales soar

“OFF MARKET” home sales have risen by 60 per cent, as demand is so high sellers do not even need to advertise their properties.

Tens of thousands of vendors chose to sell their properties privately because high buyer interest meant they could achieve their target price without the hassle of an open market sale.

More than 135,000 homeowners sold off-market last year, a 60 per cent increase on the roughly 84,500 who sold without publicly advertising in each of the previous two years, analysis by Hamptons found.

David Fell, of the estate agency, said: “Typically homes sold without being advertised on portals, papers or agency windows are homes where the vendor doesn’t want details publicly available, perhaps for security, privacy or pricing concerns. As stock levels continued to fall last year more sellers looked at an off-market strategy, in part to avoid being swamped by viewings but also to test pricing.

“Particularly in sought-after markets outside of London, like the commuter belts, sellers have been trying to push pricing up, without leaving a paper trail on the portals. So they’ll test the waters with a high price and if it sells, great, and if they don’t get a deal will then take it to the open market with a slightly more realistic price.”

The market frenzy began with the introduction of the stamp duty holiday in 2020, but continued well past its deadline in September 2021. The share of homes selling off-market increased in the final months of last year to one in 10 transactions.

Competition for homes has doubled in the past year, with the average property snapped up two weeks quicker in December compared with the previous year, according to Rightmove.

However, not all sellers were keen to join in. Since the pandemic struck, cautious owners have avoided a flood of viewings, with some even delaying putting their homes up for sale altogether, compounding the acute stock shortage.

“Some sellers have always tried to avoid people traipsing through their homes, mainly for privacy reasons, but the pandemic certainly added a safety element to this,” Mr Fell said.

Buyers in the premium London market spent a record £11.6billion across prime areas of the capital in 2021, according to Lonres, a property analysis firm. A fifth of all sales in the capital completed off-market last year, rising to a quarter for London sales above £1million, Hamptons’ data showed.