Applicant levels have reached a four-year high after increasing for a second consecutive month in September, the latest NAEA housing report claimed today, but the number of sales has stalled.
The average number of home hunters per agency branch rose from 304 in August to 308 in September – the highest level since September 2007 when the figure was 326.
The number of houses available for sale also increased, from 65 per branch to 72, between August and September. The amount of stock listed per branch was the highest for three months.
The number of sales remained static, however, at eight per branch each month, the report says.
Other NAEA figures show that the percentage of sales to first-time buyers increased from 20% in August to 22% in September, but with regional variations.
Wendy Evans-Scott, president of the NAEA, said: “It is encouraging to see that the number of inquiries is increasing, but sellers need to be very realistic when pricing their property in order to secure a sale in what is still a very cautious market.”
Agents contributing to the NAEA report give very varying accounts of the market. In East Anglia, Hayley Brown called for a return to 90% mortgages and a revised stamp duty structure, and said chains were not coming together quickly.
In the South-East, Richard Turrell said his region continued “to endure a very slow level of activity” with a limited number of sales being completed and a lack of first-time buyers.
In the North, Alison Ibster said the market was “fairly stagnant”, but in the West Country, Richard Copus said both instructions and sales increased – not to any great degree, but enough to indicate slow-growing confidence in residential property despite trouble in the financial markets.
Comments
Be sure to choose a place where they don't show the news. You don't want your holiday ruined by updates about how the Greek crisis is raising bank lending rates here...
Just going on hols, taxi due shortly, on the profit HPC nutters pay me in rent, month in month out, thanks guys, Barbados looking a look more appealing than here for the next 2 weeks. You keep cutting and pasting and making trivial points! Will miss you, not really, still laughing at you fools, esp Slappy trappy!
I did answer Ray; you just chose not to read between the lines...
; )
Unhappy,
I don't wish MY life away, but sometimes I do wish your life away, and some other HPC'ers.
It is one of my little enjoyments as I dunk my chocolate digestive in my coffee and read 'tosspottery' (as people love to call it) on here.
I imagine the nightgown and nightcap wearing Mr Unhappy, with a candle burning on the desk, peering into his screen. I imagine the single snow flake falling past your window as you type.
Where is everybody?
Up the pub, celebrating another good month..
Have a good weekend Matey
FBA - Thanks for the concern but dont worry about me, oh and p.s it was Friday....dont wish your life away.
Did you know that the great majority of people have more than the average number of legs? If 5,000 or so people in the UK have one leg missing the average number of legs per person would be 1.9999999
The rest of us being over average Oh My God !.
Here is my stat, 3 out of 4 homebuyers represent 75% of all homebuyers .. I think I am right.... I may be wrong tho
I phoned NAEA stats to discuss this article. I got through to a message machine.
It said:
"Hello, this is probably NAEA stats department, yes, the office of the famous property statisticians. I'm probably not at my desk, or not wanting to answer the phone, most probably the latter, according to my latest calculations. Supposing that the universe doesn't end in the next 30 seconds, the odds of which I'm still trying to calculate, you can leave your name, phone number, and message, and I'll probably phone you back. So far the probability of that is about 0.645. Have a nice day".
Statistics are like whores, play with them long enough and they'll do anything for you.
"do you like statisticians?" "probably." .. "or maybe not"
What the F' is this bloke who calls himself Unhappy Chappy doing on a Saturday night. Looking and clicking on EAT at Half Past Bloody 10, lol. Sad. sad, sad.
This is a sign of someone needing to get a life, this must be one of the best examples. We should all help hin and suggest other activities he might wish to do.
How about Scout Leader?
Doing things twice may result in poor efficiency haha
Anna - Poor spelling and grammar may not hold people back in business (look up famous people with dyslexia ). Lucky for me eh.....now may i suggest you think about what you said "53K breaking free of rental muppets" were they all first time buyers then?
todays tip: it takes one click to get to data after you save the source in your favourites
Anna - Poor spelling and grammar may not hold people back in business (look up famous people with dyslexia ). Lucky for me eh.....now may i suggest you think about what you said "53K breaking free of rental muppets" were they all first time buyers then?
todays tip: it takes one click to get to data after you save the source in your favourites
Dear A of S you have obviously never heard of the 80 20 rule. 80% of business comes from 20% of your clients.
So 80% of those walking through your door are time wasters and you need to thin out the 20% of genuine ones. How many have you telephone back a day or so later and taken them out of the system?
It worked yesterday and it will work tomorrow so count your applicants and see what you get.
Private Dancer- you should take time to check spelling if looking for any credibility. This is the UK.
and the numbers rantnut posted still show 53K breaking free of being rental Muppets!
Sibbo - Looking in the Ferrari dealership window is a whole different ball game to walking in and registering as a buyer! Fact.
Dear Anna
estate agents themselves should take the time and find, and analyze data like that.
You lot just can't be bothered (especially when it's bad news for you) and ignore important facts.
You should be glad that facts like that get presentation here.
(Rosalind - please note the English way of writing the date :>)
@rantnrave
I repeat a post of mine of 26-10-11
I would be interested to know if you are actually involved in the property industry and if so in what capacity and for how long. Why? Because it will help me to understand your "rantin & ravin" better and how much credence to attach to it.
Have not heard from you yet, but if you decline that is O.K. by me..
Demans4property - poor form - not in the spirit of this site - you should be removed
I strongly agree.
Rosalind - Could you please make them pay for a display ad - not insert it in the comments.
Rantrave- have you a job or life? You never miss a chance to cut and paste, you must spend hours finding it all, I feel really sad for you, all this anger changes nothing.
@Demand4Property, don't post any more replies because you will dig youself a deeper hole. The only people that will comment are the ones that have derogatory things to say.
And with regards to cheap advertising, this whole website is a cheap advert for one service or another who send in crappy PR stories that get published as "Breaking News" so does it really matter that he/she made a comment. It's better than drafting up a load of b*ll@cks and sending it is a story to be published.
@Demand4property
I agree with James, join the rest of the advertisers and pay for the coverage don’t clog up a blog with adverts, if your proposition is solid you will more than recover the advertising costs
Demans4property - poor form - not in the spirit of this site - you should be removed
Thanks for the constructive feedback re: Demand4Property. The reason why we are posting on an estate agent website is because we genuinely believe we are offering a solution for estate agents. Yes, we can match private supply and demand (similar to FSBO websites) but we can also promote an estate agent's buyer demand (with the agent still owning the buyer / seller relationship). D4P is a marketing tool to complement existing / traditional means; think of it as a Gumtree, Loot or Craigslist. We know by speaking to people that there are many sellers that a) have been enticed to sell (i.e. weren't thinking about it) or b) might not want to publicly commit / register with an estate agent before knowing that there is genuine supply. Finally, are there estate agents out there that have excess / unconverted buyer demand on their books(s)? Yes (>90%). Are estate agents beginning to promote buyer demand on their own websites? Yes. Will this model work? Who knows, but we are trying and believe it has a chance.
I am going to see this (despite Sibleys and rants view, sorry lads you are looking at this all wrong!!) as a GOOD thing
Now, this could work well for all of us here, and if its true across all EA’s then this might be just the job………………
Think of it like this – if EA’s ‘activity’ levels rise and they will get all busy, they will be booking viewings all over the show, clients will be seeing this and they will feel all nice about so much interest in their house…………….then………it all comes to sod all, no sales just lots of ‘activity’, probably lots of mortgage appointments as well, oh, and more people getting their house valued as a fair few of the increase will be sellers too.
Now, this is where we can ALL (yup, all HPCF / EA’s the lot of us) pull together, you see a vendor that has had 15 viewings and no offers in a week providing the facts are conveyed to them properly will reduce the price more readily than someone who has been for sale for 6 weeks with no viewings and is blaming their agent for it, this being the same agent that never rings them / talks to them.
Plus – all the activity is getting EA;’s to talk to more potential sellers, so they will be able to talk about what they have coming up and chains can start to be assembled, and people can talk about the old ‘cost to change’ thing that no one mentions any more, and then, reductions can be spread over the chain, this means the bloke at the bottom with a FTB house can put in on the market at a ‘proper’ price and even an HPC’er would think, sod it, ill go for it at that price.
So, if 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskers, and 12 viewings with no offer means price reductions, or to use the Ferrari comparison……..i cant., im getting all in a fiddle with it now and have to go out for my 12.30
So – brothers and sisters of the EA world – don’t be busy fools, unite and bang the viewings in, show the vendors that 12 people saying no is proof, tell them that you have been seeing houses on the estate they want to go to and at a price that means they can sell at a ‘proper price’ with a mortgage rate that’s not to bad really.
You never know it might get the volumes up and the market moving, not sure but I think im onto something
Jonnie
Land Reg for Sept out today.
-0.3% monthly / -2.6% annually (same %s as last month - cue X-Files theme tune).
Hartlepool experienced the greatest annual price fall with a movement of -18.3 per cent. Middlesborough and Oldham down by double digits too.
The borough with the most significant annual price rise is Kensington and Chelsea, with a movement of 11.2 per cent.
The number of property transactions has decreased over the last year. In April to July 2010, there was an average of 58,672 sales per month. In the same months this year, the figure was approximately 8.4 per cent less at 53,752 sales per month.
Full report here:
www1.landregistry.gov.uk/upload/documents/HPI_Report_Sep_11_sb5ar16.pdf
Thanks Trevor, it's a homage to a bull (Sibley) that used to frequent HPC. His motto was (in 2008) 'prices won't crash because the govt won't allow it'.
He might be daft, he might have a VI in prices not falling but damn he was right. He can still be seen on the comments section of the Daily Express on-line these days.
In any event, have a good weekend fella.
Roz why do you allow tin pot companies to abuse this site and advertise free, see first post from some unknown web jockyes?
Sibley's B.......D Child - I love your Ferrari analogy posted beneath, incisive and to the point - wish you'd go into print more often in this vein. 'Fraid I don't understand your nom de plume though, but then I am a registered old fart and worn out agency commentator!
Best to all for the weekend. Big T
demand4property trying to cut out the agents and advertise for free by posting on here, your business will fail - so keep pumping your money in!
Ignore previous comment - the bit at the bottom of the page suggesting the estate agent url for your house was not visible - up to then it looks like trying to create private sales.
Have to say I still don't get it. I want a 4 bed detached house in a village near Guildford with a large, private garden - not on a main road. Surely I'll look on Rightmove - where 95% of the houses for sale are listed.
Why would I go around the area putting leaflets in people's letterboxes asking if they want to sell - which, apparently, is where the idea came from.
Why would you mention a site that appears to be trying to put private sales together on an estate agents' site?
What happens when someone with their house on the market in Bourne End sees that someone is looking for a house in Bourne End - and then it turns out the buyer is already registered with the seller's estate agent because, let's face it, if someone is seriously looking for a property in Bourne End, they will have registered with all the local agents.
In other news, Ferrari dealerships up and down the country have reported an increase in passers-by looking in the window.
A spokesperson for Ferrari said 'while these aren't translating into sales, it indicates increasing consumer confidence'.
@demand4property, I think your site is an ok idea if you can get enough attention from estate agents. However, the problem with these things is that they are always so vague. There are few estate agents that are going to take notice of someone looking for a "3 bed detached up to 1 million pounds in nottinghamshire".
If you can make the criteria specific then people might take an interest.
Alternatively, they could just look on rightmove for themsevles.
Interesting article. This is exactly what Demand4Property is trying to capture; excess house hunter demand (the majority of which isn't converted!). Estate agents - have a look at the site www.demand4property.com and upload your buyer demand. All your property wanted adverts will be tagged estate agent demand and all seller enquiries will come directly to you, therefore allowing you to maintain the buyer relationship and retain subsequent fees etc.