NEW YEAR, NEW HOPE, NEW MOVE
Despite last year’s stagnant property market, a sudden surge in interested buyers is now creating a flurry of serious bids, says Caroline McGhie
We had almost stopped hoping it could happen. During the slump, some home owners despaired of ever selling their houses and felt they could never move on. Then in December, when the market should have been as quiet as a hibernating dormouse, potential buyers appeared in large numbers. Hamptons International says new applicants are up 42 per cent compared with the same time last year. People whose properties had languished in estate agents’ windows for one, two, or even three years are now surprised by the number of viewings. Rake Hill House, a classic Georgian house with paddocks at Liss in Hampshire, which has been on the market since May last year, suddenly had 98 viewings and has just sold through Jackson-Stops & Staff. Similar stories are being told across the country, and owners are switching agents and reducing their prices to catch the wave of interest. It’s not that these houses had anything wrong with them in the first place. Vine Cottage, with five bedrooms in Chilton Foliat near Hungerford, is full of charm and close enough to trains into London, but still couldn’t find a buyer last year. After it had been on the market at £1.1million for six months with Chesterton Humberts, Edward Hall of Smiths Gore stepped in as joint agent. “Last summer a lot of people were looking but not making offers and they seemed to think that things might get worse,” he says. “So a lot of stuff just sat around. We decided the price here had to be reduced to £995,000 but the sad thing was that the seller had turned down an early offer of over £1million. This is a lovely house with a barn made into a one-bedroom annex so that it can earn an income and help pay for itself.” Suddenly in December there were five viewings and repeat viewings are continuing. “It is as if people have suddenly realised we haven’t fallen off the world and they still need to move,” he says. Even so, there isn’t a huge choice. Eager buyers spurred on by talk of economic recovery and rising prices can find themselves suddenly pitched into competitive bidding. Johnny Morris, head of research at Hamptons International, says stock is down on last year by five per cent across England and Wales, and down by 17 per cent in London and across the south. “It now takes almost two weeks less to agree a sale than at the same time last year,” he says. Timing, price and intelligent selling can come together nicely in a market like this. For lawyer Edward Henry, selling a fourbedroom cottage called Gearings in Fairford, Gloucestershire, the solution was very careful presentation. The pretty stone house went on the market in 2011 at £650,000, was later reduced to £575,000, then taken off the market and went back on again a week before Christmas with Strutt & Parker (01285 653101). Within days it had gone under offer at £595,000. “I had it properly styled and it gave it a much better chance,” says Edward. “We kept it very simple, took pictures off the walls, cleared the place of the impedimenta of a life. There are people definitely intending to buy. They feel we are on the brink of a surge in the country. Three buyers came through the door immediately.” Developers have felt the sharp cut of the recession more than most. Many schemes were mothballed. In 2008, Barry Paul and Hazel Moulder put their cottage in Little Kineton, Warwickshire, on the market last May. After reducing the price from £485,000 to £450,000 they had 11 viewings through Hamptons International (01295 203038) in the first week of 2014. “There are more serious buyers looking now,” said Paul. Tyrrell of Romark Homes converted a spectacular group of barns beside the church in the village of Compton in West Berkshire into five houses. “All five were reserved and the deposits had been paid. Then four of the five buyers withdrew because they couldn’t sell their own houses,” he says. These were the dark days with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the world liquidity crisis. But Barry was resourceful. “We made the decision to let all the houses for two or three years, and that has worked really well. As they have become available we have sold them.” The last one, with four bedrooms, on the market for most of last year at £625,000, was then taken on by Strutt & Parker and the price was reduced to £595,000 in December. Three buyers instantly emerged and Barry has accepted an offer. “There is a fear now, I think, that prices will rise and sellers will hope to get a bit more,” he says. Some properties stranded by challenging economic conditions should now be sold. Christian Gross bought the Bridge Hotel in Helmsdale, Sutherland, to turn into a boutique foodie hotel with fishing on the River Helmsdale. But then he met and fell in love with a Swiss doctor and together they decided to launch an air rescue service in the Kalahari region of Africa. They put the hotel on the market just as the economy turned and it sat there from 2008 to 2012 with a price tag of £1.25million. “There aren’t many places in Europe where lobsters, Angus beef, venison and snipe are literally at your doorstep,” says Christian from his new home in Africa. Last year he put it back on the market at £595,000, a big drop because the hotel was no longer trading and it was difficult for buyers to borrow against it. “This is such incredible value now, and the sad thing is that Christian had an offer of £1million early on which he turned down,” says Mark Atkinson (01875 341768), who is handling the sale with CKD Galbraith (0131 240 6960). “It has all that sort of Victorian Balmoral charm but is sitting empty and costs the same as a flat in Battersea.”