The number of housing transactions in April was down markedly in April.
A total of 72,000 homes across the UK were sold, according to HMRC – down from 88,000 in April, although up on the 70,000 sold in April last year, when the Royal Wedding proved a distraction.
This April’s figure equates to 2,400 sold a day, compared with the long-term average of 3,383, said housing analyst Henry Pryor.
He said properties on the market have just an 8% chance of being sold in the next month, and a 34% chance of being sold within the next year.
Comments
PoTW - not sure if that is an open to the floor question or directed at anyone in poarticular. Hope you don't mind but I'm going to give you an answer - although it will not be what you want to see...
Basically your question is virtually impossible to answer due to a myriad of variables. Will the agent sell one property in a year, or three hundred and one? Will it be a one-man band working from a converted room in his house - or would there be twenty staff to pay and associated office costs to service? How many hours will it take to sell? How much time will be expended on the appraisal/listing; marketing; negotiating; sale progressing - what about the possibilioty of an abortive sale - include THAT into the equation, or start from scratch again?;
You talk profit vs' cost. what do you mean "profit"? The profit could be ZERO - if you pay out the whole fee in 'wages'...
The answer to your question is, I would suggest, bobbling in with the balls for tomorrow's Lottery jackpot.
What do you think a fair price to sell a 400k property would be? Bog standard 3 bed estate house in a nice area of the home counties. What percentage would you charge?
What would your costs be?
Based on your costs - what would your profit be?
Based on the number of hours you put into the selling, what net hourly rate would you earn?
To the complete berk whose only opinion is that the opinion of others is unwanted - then simply don't visit the site! Your problem is, as I have already stated one of a personal nature in that somewhere, an Estate Agent or nine has clearly given your other half a way better seeing to than you can, and keeps reminding you of this. (In fact, I believe that the same may be true of the occasional (or frequent...) HPCer also, as your ire has splashed out over some of our Dark Side visitors also in the past.) So - sorry that yer partner was, or is, a bit of a bike - but come on - it's hardly likely to be Jonnie or wardy that did the dirty deed on you is it, so give it a rest, pal, and cut them some slack. They are entitled to an opinion; their opinions are shared by many who frequent this site - so maybe you are just a duck in the wrong pond.
Oh - and yer spelling's still cr@p, by the way...
Julie M - a first post, I believe, so welcome to the party. Your post if I may say so is a little ambiguous. If you are referring to the poster prat I have just had a wee pop at, then yes - he is the EAT website version of candida.
IF, however, you are instead referring to the posts of Jonnie, then I respectfully suggest you read a great many of them again - unless of course you can't see through a little bit of humour to the real, relevant, and on-the-money points he consistently makes - which would make me suspect that you do not understand the property business and you would then be another lost duck to add to the statistic above.
I'll plump for the first. Please don't tell me I'm wrong - I hate it when I'm wrong...
@Wheres Whalley (Jonnie)
hes an idiot that keeps writting rubbish, thinks he is funny and doesnt say anything relevant
My god a post without Whalley (Jonnie) telling us our opinion, no doubt be posting about his dog fetish very soon!
RR. You state "..."An 8% chance of being sold in the next month, and a 34% chance of being sold within the next year."
It won't be too welcome, Im sure, but surely this is not a great testimony for the efficiency of estate agency as the vehicle to sell and let houses across the UK?"
So - what is the alternative? I seem to vaguely remember you have something or other to do with a FSBO website?
How do YOUR stats compare to the above? Is YOUR vehicle providing better mileage?
FANTASTIC!!
Some extremely positive news from the nation's Number 2 housing gloom soothsayer, Mr Henry Pryor (good old No 1 appearing in the columns way down below of course - riding in as usual on the back of someone that is actually recognised as an 'expert' in the market...).
Positive? you say. Absolutely! He says "...properties on the market have just an 8% chance of being sold in the next month, and a 34% chance of being sold within the next year."
Not JUST, Mr Pryor. A MASSIVE increase on your statement a year ago when you quoted "...At this rate and with the current volume of new supply coming on to the market, the chance of a home selling in the first month of marketing is just 6% and if left on the market for 12 months it is only 29%."
SO - to rephrase what you state, Sir:
New instructions are now FIFTY PERCENT MORE LIKELY to achieve a sale in the first four weeks of marketing than they were only a year ago!
Even those that for whatever reason sit there for a full twelve months have a fifth more chance of selling!
I LIKE THAT! Thanks for the info, Mr Pryor! ;o)
@Optimist
Actually its a very positive spin. The EA story uses the seasonally adjusted figure of 72K, which makes for a smaller fall than the non-seasonally adjusted figure of 65K (the March figure was the same for both). Also, the NSA figures show a drop from last April so god knows how the HMRC have adjusted it to be positive.
Looking at the actual NSA data, this is the lowest number of April transactions since 2009, and I imagine this figure is slightly flattered by including a proportion of buyers using funds from sales to FTBs before the stamp duty break ended.
RR with another cheap shot bordering the pathetic.
'There must be a way of improving on this, surely.
The question is, how?'
I know RR, Why not take your property and post it on an unknown private sellers website that nobody looks at. That will get the market moving.
What will you do for circulation once you've talked your readers' market into oblivion?
BTW I do love your "spam" avoidance tool - just like the Spam sketch, the answer is always the same (according to my calculator :-)) - 14
Read this "article" again. Is April groundhog month, or what on earth is the article supposed to mean?
You state that last April's HMRC figures, based presumably on Land Transaction Returns lodged with them (which show actual completions on house purchases) during that month were subject of the distraction of the Royal Wedding. Since sales completed in April would have been agreed in January and February and, possibly, March how can they have been skewed by the Royal Wedding. Instead, you need to look at the June/July Land Transaction Return lodgement figures to determine the effect on the market of the Royal Wedding - yes?
The 88,000 figure you report (presumably for March, yes?) reflect the rush to complete already-negotiated purchases by the 24 March stamp duty holiday deadline.
So, really, you can't draw any comparison from the figures, even if you know to which months they refer. Except, to me, it looks like the market is "steady away", which will do for me, for this year.
As for the jubilee weekend, I am sure its effect will not be as much as the four-day Easter weekend, which occurs every year in or around one of the two peaks of buyer activity in the housing market, not (as is the case with the upcoming break) just as the market is subsiding into its summer trough.
Think about it!
Surely the story here is;
'Great news, according to Land Registry figures there were 2000 more sales in April 2012 than there were in April 2011'
This is just another way of putting a negative spin on seasonal housing transaction numbers.
No they were not. It takes some considerable time for a sale to hit HMRC desks and get logged and this is sales made in December. What a bunch!
"An 8% chance of being sold in the next month, and a 34% chance of being sold within the next year."
It won't be too welcome, Im sure, but surely this is not a great testimony for the efficiency of estate agency as the vehicle to sell and let houses across the UK?
If the figures stand up, a 34% chance of getting a sale during the year isn't great, either for vendors, or for buyers currently needing to move house.
There must be a way of improving on this, surely.
The question is, how?
If the Royal Wedding did that in April last year I hate to think what the Jubolympee will do for June through August.
Just what we need.