A scarcity of new properties on the market meant that asking prices have edged up slightly, Rightmove reports this morning.
With sellers staying away from the market, this month asking prices of properties newly on sale rose by a national average of just 0.3% compared with those put on the market in December, and by just 0.4% over the last year.
In London, the low supply of property has propelled asking prices up by 1.1% in the last month.
The numbers of new sellers, which hit a two-year low in both London and across the UK, contrasted with the record amount of traffic to Rightmove, said the site. On Monday, January 11, Rightmove recorded its busiest day yet with over 28.3m pages viewed.
Numbers of new sellers have been very low in the last three Januaries.
This year, and in January 2009, they are at around the 9,000 mark, and last January hit 10,000.
In the Januaries of 2006, 2007 and 2008, the number of homes put on the market were around 18,000.
The average number of properties per sale per agent was 70 at the start of the year, with time on the market standing at just over 90 days.
The Rightmove report also paints a picture of home-owners ‘stuck’ in their properties at the bottom end of traditional chains: the supply of semis to the market is down 30% year on year.
Rightmove commercial director Miles Shipside said: “They would previously have sold to owner occupiers of terraces who in turn would have sold to first-time buyers or buy-to-let investors.”
The average asking price on Rightmove continues to provide a huge contrast to the actual selling prices being reported by Halifax, Nationwide and Land Registry. The average asking price for a property newly listed on Rightmove is now £223,121 – compared with the £163,000 actual selling price.
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Comments
rich: If you find the industry you work in boring, may I respectfully suggest you leave it and find something that interests you. If you won't miss It, then IOt certainly won't miss YOU.
Oh - and wake up. "Your sort probably overprice without knowing it anyway". I've said it before, I'll say it yet again for your benefit - I am NOT an Estate Agent!!
But Jeez, if I was I would have those like you for breakfast...
Well said Rebel .....Mr Shipside should be silent & keep his head down. I don't know how that man can sleep at night.
is that the sound of a ....BITE!!
You are right of course peeee. Your sort probably overprice without knowing it anyway. Thats what i meant by we all do it. I do it just to stay busy to be fair,,cant be bothered trying to explain to people anymore. We get sales yes but come on ,,how boring is this industry,,if you dont own an office get out,,i would.
rich: So I'm stirring it up, am I?
I think you will find that NOT "everybody does it" - and those I know who stick to principles of offering an honest appraisal and asking for a reasonable Fee for their services are FAR from bust.
The NAEA have no control over what the press will or won't print. You have NO IDEA of what the organisation put out for release - all you see is what is printed - the tip of the iceberg and only what the press think will sell papers. That would be the negative news; the property market doom and gloom that litters this site daily.
I think you have read too much of it.
I do agree with one of your comments - until banks free up lending, property transactions are going to continue to drag. HOWEVER, sales are still happening - at roughly 50% of 'normal. Surely, then, as businesspeople, you all realise that in order to maintain your income you need to increase your fees x2?? OR halve your expenditure... the choice is yours.
There is no rocket science above. Just grow some and ask for more.
James you are honest and yes everyone does it or they would go bust so dont bite at pee (stir it up) bee.
Also yyyyyyes it is the banks not lending,,end of.
If naea earned their cash they would make the media aware of it.
Mr Shipside should be silent & keep his head down. I don't know how that man can sleep at night.
40 years ago, to clear a stuck chain, a buyer five or six links above my cousins contacted them and made them a personal unsecured loan which 'unstuck' the whole chain. As a percentage of this guy's sale price, the loan was probably worth it even if never repaid, just to push the sale through.
Maybe an enterprising agent should set up a brokerage to arrange just such deals today. £10-20,000 is all that is needed to get some FTBs buying and as a 'clearance fee' on £1m purchases, it would make sense.
Having followed posts about the market and prices etc. for the last 12/18 months I am now of the opinion that the OVERIDING problem is the money lenders who insist on more than 10% deposits and only 3 times earnins before they will lend at a sensible rate. Many buyers can afford sensible repayments at more than 3 times earnings. There are some other factors but it is mainly the deposits and lending rates. They are not being sufficiently addressed.
James (the sensible one), no I am not one of the ones that over-values just to get the work - hence my frustration at the royal we.....
I do not count myself as one of the stupid ones - thank goodness
Apologies for typo below, I meant 'lose' not loose.
We received two extremely good offers at the weekend (both accepted) and a third good offer that may or may not be accepted. Why mightn't it be? Because some 'fly by night' massively over-valued it some 10 months ago and whilst the vendors have reduced, understand and agree with our comparables, they still think they are losing money that they never had.
Likewise a friend of ours, whose house we have just sold, has made a good private offer to one of his neighbours that has been rejected because the same 'F-B-N ' valued the property at £65K more than three other agents, ourselves included.
Over pricing doesn't benefit anybody, you can be on the market and sell, or you can just be on the market.
We like to be honest but unfortunately we do sometimes loose the instruction, for a while anyway.
This article seems to be based on the record traffic to Rightmove's site. It has been Rightmoves policy for some years (and a very successful one, so you can't knock them ) to concentrate their t.v. advertising to coincide with Agents renewing their contracts. As a result naturally there is more activity driven to the site. That is the whole idea. Unfortunately as much as we should like to think otherwise this isn't the early spring of a healthy housing market but more likely a mild flurry that is likely to die away fairly quickly. Until after Agents have signed up that is.
Sadly a temporary phenomenon, most homeowners are hibernating under the duvet this time of year, they will be coming on tin their bucketloads in Spring, unfortunately demand from those are able to purchase will be similar to what it is now.
There are about 10+ elements or components in the housing market ranging from Builders with land banks, through solicitors and far too slow and expensive a legal process to buyers and sellers and a whole lot more in between all of whom contribute in their own way to the good but sadly mainly bad features of the UK housing market.
Doesn't anyone understand which element is the problem at the moment - lenders who simply are not lending because they need to rebuild their capital bases and be seen to be taking less risk. Problem is lenders are currently taking zero risk and it will be like that well into 2012. You can have prices where you like, you could have the average house price in this country at £100K and variable mortgage rates at say 8% but if average earnings are around £25K and a lender will only lend x3 income then a single buyer has to stump up a 25% deposit. This is the whole problem in terms of funding and at the moment with money relatively cheap to borrow it is an even greater disaster for the market that no-one can borrow on mortgage because deposits demanded are too high.
James (the sensible one thank goodness...):
"We do this every year at this time and then regret it when the client won't reduce and withdraws, to try another agent."
Are you using the Royal 'We' here, or are you referring purely to YOUR firm overvaluing every January? ;0)
I am sure that this article will bring out our currently somewhat quiet, likeable nutter - Mr PropertyMatch. We haven't heard about his suggestions for overvaluing Agents. what is it this week, Mr PM - death by firing squad, maybe?
I would wholeheartedly agree with your final comment relating to fee slashing. If an Agent is quick to roll over on fees, then their negotiating skills are simply not up to the job of handling their clients' most valuable asset.
Take existing fantasy pricing. Add a dash of competitive over-valuing, mix it with a cocktail of vendor greed and downright stupidity and what do you get ... a stagnant market. Time to start getting honest with people, folks, even it it means missing some instructions. In the current market they won't sell at these prices anyway.
Chasing boards by over-valuing is bonkers
We do this every year at this time and then regret it when the client won't reduce and withdraws, to try another agent
Although vendors are scarce, so are buyers
Outside of London there is not much evidence of upward pressure on prices
As an industry we are like no other. In hard times we over-price our product and slash our fees - no wonder the public think that agents are stupid (not all are of course)