The National Association of Estate Agents has come out fighting over criticism of its recent claim that the number of first time buyers is declining.
Yesterday Neal Hudson, a Savills market analyst, said on Twitter some of the NAEA data look bonkers and earlier this week Chris Wood of PDQ Property tweeted a link to a story showing the number of first time buyers was rising rapidly and commented more evidence that NAEA surveys are inconsequential.
Some weeks ago housing analyst and buying agent Henry Pryor engaged in an exchange of tweets with the NAEA centred on the apparent contrast between the association's figures and those produced by the Halifax building society.
Most of the controversy has arisen from a press release issued by the association in late July. It set the housing market agenda for some days and formed the basis for a front page story in the Daily Mail. It stated:
First time buyers are being squeezed further out of the market, with sales by this group down five percentage points. The NAEA's June Housing Market Report shows the number of first time buyers dropped to 20 per cent, down from 25 per cent in May, the lowest level recorded since May 2013. The first time buyer struggle is reflected in the age of this month's house buyers, as those aged 18 to 30 represented just three per cent of all house sales in June, the lowest percentage of young house buyers recorded by the NAEA.
But the Council of Mortgage Lenders, for example, claims there were 28,600 first-time buyer mortgages in June - seven per cent up on May's figure and accounting for almost half of residential mortgage lending (excluding remortgages and buy to let).
And there were 30,000 more first-time buyers in the first half of 2014 than in the equivalent period in 2013, according to the First Time Buyer Tracker from LSL Property Services.
But NAEA president Simon Gerrard says the association's figures - compiled from reports from around 500 agencies across the country - are right.
There may be some in the industry who didn't like the scale of coverage that it received and there may be explanations such as younger people watching the World Cup or being held back by MMR delays - but that doesn't mean the figures were not right he says.
I run an 11 office agency and the association's figures on first time buyers very accurately reflected the situation that I saw first hand. They were spot on."
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