x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.
STAY CONNECTED!
    
newsletter-button

Housing market is broken, says Rightmove

17 May 2010
Written by rosalind renshaw

A surge of new sellers coming to the market and a crippling of demand due to the mortgage drought has led to agents being stuck with more unsold properties.

This morning, Rightmove reported a ‘sharp’ rise in unsold stock, whilst across the country, asking prices rose just 0.7% over the last month.

In London, the surge of stock means there are double the number of new properties on the market compared with this time last year – 4,170 as opposed to 2,110. In London, asking prices fell slightly, by 0.4%, compared with April prices.

Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said: “Potential buyers remain in a difficult position.” He said they were being “marginalised” by lenders continuing to demand large deposits and high credit worthiness.

He said first-time buyers and property investors were “particular casualties of the finance famine”.

Calling the housing market broken, Shipside said that rising stock levels and rising house prices made for unhappy bedfellows. “We are seeing signs that the relationship is under increasing stress,” he said.

He said of the imbalance between sellers and purchasers: “The market has to either operate at reduced sales volumes or hope that sellers can sell to each other, forming circular chains by trading up and down. This is a much more inefficient model, with less chance of sales success and longer lead-times.

“While new stock levels remained low, this inefficient market was able to maintain prices as long as supply broadly matched demand. With more sellers now marketing, this uneasy equilibrium is in danger of becoming unbalanced. There aren’t enough ready-and-able buyers to soak up a surge in fresh stock.”

Over the last month, Rightmove has been recording in excess of 30,000 new listings a week. The last time this happened was in the week starting June 28, 2008.

It puts the amount of unsold stock per agency branch at 71.

However, it would appear that asking prices have a very long way indeed to fall. The average asking price on Rightmove is £237,134. But according to Halifax, the actual average selling price is £168,202 and according to Nationwide it is £167,802.

Comments

  • icon

    undersupply has underpinned house prices so far, with 100,000's of jobs going in the public sector and the ban on hIPS, supply WILL increase, demand won't as mortgage lending will remain tight, so back to a sellers market, falling values and more repo's then.

    • 18 May 2010 15:24 PM
  • icon

    Move up north, most agents "value" to list rather than sell and seem content to wait often years to sell!! How do they survive?? HIP revenue perhaps?? Killing to be made doing job right lad!

    • 18 May 2010 13:53 PM
  • icon

    Watch prices collapse when the 'vendors' find out they do not need a HIP....

    • 17 May 2010 15:27 PM
  • icon

    We are very low on available stock, most sales agreed within a few days of marketing.

    • 17 May 2010 15:19 PM
  • icon

    Central London is really low on stock tight now. We are finding that due to purchasers having bigger deposits they are taking a lot more time when deciding what to offer on, and hardly anyone is offering full asking!
    We need mortgage companies to become less stringent on lending or I see much of the same for the remainder of 2010.

    • 17 May 2010 13:35 PM
  • icon

    there are agents here purposly keeping unsold/SSTC stock on rightmove to get up on the competitor analysis, agents are fudging the listings so they can tell vendors that they are the leading agent. Competitor analysis pretty much renders all rightmove stats useless.

    • 17 May 2010 13:12 PM
  • icon

    To (almost) quote Bill Clinton - "Its the mortgage famine stupid"
    The money boys are wanting really silly requirements and guarantees (for mainly lending our money?)

    • 17 May 2010 11:50 AM
  • icon

    There's nothing for sale in central London.

    • 17 May 2010 10:51 AM
  • icon

    maybe this is where the North - South divide makes a differance? I wouldn't trust anything RM says, the market would be better off without them, their just a PR company making money out of estate agents.

    • 17 May 2010 10:50 AM
  • icon

    What absolute garbage. Properties are selling within days in North London. No agents have got any unsold properties on their books unless the property is more than £50,000 overpriced. Today's waste of ink.

    • 17 May 2010 10:20 AM
  • icon

    My experience has been that things got very quiet when the election was announced all is certainly coming back now. The market simply doesn't like uncertainty and I'm surprised that point hasn't been noted by Rightmove.

    • 17 May 2010 10:20 AM
  • icon

    there arent any instructions in Surrey thats for sure........

    • 17 May 2010 09:34 AM
  • icon

    Now there's a surprise! How much worse do you think it will get when HIPs are abolished and every speculative vendor comes on to the market? You think having a HIP is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Put your tin hats on because this is going to get ugly.

    • 17 May 2010 09:21 AM
Breaking News
MovePal MovePal MovePal