A year in the property market - what is really happening?

The property market has experienced a large increase in activity despite Covid-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has affected all our lives in a mostly negative manner, and most property professionals during the first lockdown predicted that the economy and the housing market would drop off a cliff edge.

The opposite is true of the local housing market.

The market has benefitted from pent up demand, but also a lack of housing supply. 

The property market slumped in the summer and autumn of 2019.

After Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and the Brexit rhetoric was ramped up in the run up to the December Election, the market suffered horribly.  The autumn 2019 market was almost non-existent.  The day after the election however, our phone lines lit up and the market came back to life, even though it was December.

Activity levels continued to increase until the end of February 2020, but then the lockdown came in March and that was the end of that.

Since re-opening at the end of May transaction levels have soared, house prices locally have been squeezed upwards and we have seen a surge in demand from buyers from out of the area. 

Interestingly we are now receiving as many out of town enquiries via our website partners          Prime Location and Zoopla which are more popular in the south of the country than Rightmove, which is more prevalent in the north.  If you know anybody trying to sell at the moment, tell them to make sure that they are on Zoppla and Prime Location rather than just Rightmove.  We still get plenty of local Rightmove enquiries, but for a wider reach the others are better in our experience.

The upper quartile of the market has seen a positive rise, the lowest quartile remains largely           unpopular as first-time buyers no longer desire the smallest houses in the inner city/town locations.  Apartments too are presently unfashionable due to a lack of outdoor space and fire risk related issues. 

Demand for lettings is also at an all time high with our landlord clients able to command higher rents than last year.

If you or anybody you know would like to know more about the market at this time do please contact me personally.