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Over 1m HIPs wasted as majority of homes fail to sell

25 August 2010
Written by rosalind renshaw

More than one million unnecessary Home Information Packs were issued in the 12 months to June this year, because so many houses failed to sell.

New research says that well over half of the 1.825 million houses that were put on the market in England, Wales and Scotland did not sell.

In total, more than 1.1 million homes remained unsold, compared with 725,000 sales that went through.

High prices were cited as a main reason (18% of cases) for properties failing to sell.

There were also 755,000 people who tried to buy but could not, with 53% unable to find buyers for their own home.

One in ten buyers were unable to raise a sufficient deposit and 4% could not get a mortgage deal for other reasons. Some 12% of people who tried to sell could not get an acceptable offer.

The findings are based on Land Registry and Register of Scotland data, plus opinion polls conducted among more than 2,000 people in June. The research has been released by the high street bank Santander.

Phil Cliff, director of mortgages at Santander, said: “Our research shows that it’s not just sellers who are having a hard time, as many buyers say they’re unable to secure a good mortgage deal, often because they find it difficult to save a sufficient deposit.”
 
The Santander findings relating to unsold stock appear to be in line with Rightmove. The property portal says that August has been the sixth consecutive month of properties failing to sell, as evidenced by the increased amount of unsold stock per agent.

Comments

  • icon

    Will- you really must read the posts and understand them, then perhaps you could add something usefull...then again?????

    • 27 August 2010 12:03 PM
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    Well done EAT at brining these facts to our attention. What it does highlight is what a waste of time and the HIP debacle turned out to be. Most properties weren't selling quickly or at all and the major flaw of HIPs supposed to speed things up. What everyone can now see, vendors wasted their money in most cases, as the buyer had to fork out again (2 bites of the cherry for the sols/searches brigade income). HIPs only worked in the short term with no chain and as the report highlighted this actually wasn't happening!

    • 27 August 2010 11:00 AM
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    Why do Hips get star billing in this headline ?

    Should it not be Estate agents fail to sell over 1M market ready properties ?

    And no, I have nothing to do with Hips.

    • 26 August 2010 11:19 AM
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    To Brian who commented that Scotland do have hips. Wrong, Scotland have the Home Report not hip and nothing like it ever. Oh! and Scotland is that country north of England.

    • 25 August 2010 15:48 PM
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    Scotts do have a "Hip" they are better than ours were but are failing the market as everyone belives the unobtainable prices the "Valuers" put in them, including tight and greedy vendors who insist it must be worth it, its in the survey- the clue thats its not lies in " On market 2 years"..........shoot in the surveyors, ask the EA and maybe things could work.

    • 25 August 2010 12:25 PM
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    Better comment from this Spanish invader would have been when are you going take responsibilty and free up ledning, not just generate free publicity via no story PR story

    • 25 August 2010 12:22 PM
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    Santander? Huh!
    What a useless list of 'facts' they provide.
    Tell us something useful that the majority don't know already.
    Move on!

    • 25 August 2010 12:18 PM
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    The point is that (EPC aside) an intended benefit of the HIP was to reduce costs to buyers, through no longer having multiple surveys on the same home, and to reduce sales falling through by having an almost Exchange Ready pack available. But when the survey bit got dropped, and Exchange Ready was an option not the norm the HIP ended up having pretty much no reason for existing and has cost our clients/potential clients money which they (unfairly I feel) see as yet another stealth tax.

    • 25 August 2010 10:09 AM
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    I agree too. Typical nonsense headline to grab readers' attention. The headline suggests that if HIPs had not have been required the work would not have had to have been done when in fact more work would have had to have been done because more houses would have gone onto the market! Also, more money would have been paid out but to solicitors and suchlike directly.

    • 25 August 2010 09:49 AM
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    It was not the fault of HIPs why the houses didn't sell, get a grip or a worthwhile news story

    • 25 August 2010 09:46 AM
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    Why has scotlands figures been put into the mix as Scotland did not have hips. Must be like the weather forecast if its raining in England Britains having a wet day.

    • 25 August 2010 09:46 AM
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    I agree, what a pathetic headline.
    "unnecessary Home Information Packs"?
    They were necessary, by law, at the time!

    • 25 August 2010 09:31 AM
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    I guess the 1 million sets of property details, 1 million 'for sale' boards, 3-4 million valuations, 10+ million viewings etc haven't been wasted. What a pathetic headline!

    • 25 August 2010 09:16 AM
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