x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.

The National Association of Estate Agents has come out fighting over criticism of its recent claim that the number of first time buyers is declining.

Yesterday Neal Hudson, a Savills market analyst, said on Twitter some of the NAEA data looks bonkers. He returned to the attack this morning, detailing rival data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders which contradicted NAEA figures.

Earlier this week Chris Wood of PDQ Property tweeted a link to a story showing the number of first time buyers was rising rapidly and commented more evidence that NAEA surveys are inconsequential.

Some weeks ago housing analyst and buying agent Henry Pryor engaged in an exchange of tweets with the NAEA centred on the apparent contrast between the association's figures and those produced by the Halifax building society.

Most of the controversy has arisen from a press release issued by the association in late July. It set the housing market agenda for some days and formed the basis for a front page story in the Daily Mail. It stated:

First time buyers are being squeezed further out of the market, with sales by this group down five percentage points. The NAEA's June Housing Market Report shows the number of first time buyers dropped to 20 per cent, down from 25 per cent in May, the lowest level recorded since May 2013. The first time buyer struggle is reflected in the age of this month's house buyers, as those aged 18 to 30 represented just three per cent of all house sales in June, the lowest percentage of young house buyers recorded by the NAEA.

But the Council of Mortgage Lenders, for example, claims there were 28,600 first-time buyer mortgages in June - seven per cent up on May's figure and accounting for almost half of residential mortgage lending (excluding remortgages and buy to let).

And there were 30,000 more first-time buyers in the first half of 2014 than in the equivalent period in 2013, according to the First Time Buyer Tracker from LSL Property Services.

But NAEA president Simon Gerrard has told Estate Agent Today that the association's figures - compiled from reports from around 500 agencies across the country - are right.

There may be some in the industry who didn't like the scale of coverage that it received and there may be explanations such as younger people watching the World Cup or being held back by MMR delays - but that doesn't mean the figures were not right he says.

I run an 11 office agency and the association's figures on first time buyers very accurately reflected the situation that I saw first hand. They were spot on" Gerrard insists.

Comments

  • icon

    Everyone who complies statistics has an agenda. So what is the agenda of the NAEA with a negative stance - they act for us so what are they hoping to achieve. The Council of Mortgage lenders act for banks so with a positive spin what are they hoping to achieve. Believe no one, the spin doctors are kings of their trade.

    • 15 August 2014 16:02 PM
  • icon

    National averages are never indicative of the extremes they purport to represent. What happens in the place you do business is what counts - not stats influenced by areas hundreds of miles away.

    • 14 August 2014 13:05 PM
  • icon

    At least the NAEA have come out and responded to the criticism rather than staying quiet on the issue

    • 14 August 2014 09:16 AM
  • icon

    During the last year I will be lucky to have sold half a dozen properties to a FTB. The rise during the past year has been very small.

    • 14 August 2014 08:58 AM
  • icon

    Everyone seems to give different data, so who do we believe Truth is, unless you're going round to every estate agent in the country to check how many first-time buyers they've had, your data is only ever going to be guesswork and estimates. The NAEA says one thing, someone else pipes up to dismiss it as 'bonkers'. Next week another organisation brings out data, which is also questioned. It happens all the time, in every industry, and just leads most people to roll their eyes at how tedious it all is.

    • 14 August 2014 08:55 AM
  • icon

    Pointless meaningless generalisations from people not actually talking to the FTB's anyhow. Who cares. Unless you are planning on speaking to every estate agent in the country to form an accurate opinion then you can never be sure. I don't care who I sell to.

    • 14 August 2014 08:29 AM
  • icon

    As one of the many people who contribute to the NAEA reports I have sold less than 5 homes to first time buyers over the last 5 months and I work out of a typical provincial office in a town of 30,000 people. Pretty much everyone I talk to in the area say first time buyer numbers have increased only slightly in 2014. It's the facts from the ground that matter.

    • 14 August 2014 08:15 AM
MovePal MovePal MovePal