In case you missed our coverage over the holiday, here are some important stories which broke between Christmas and New Year.
It may be a challenging year ahead with supply and demand of homes becoming still more imbalanced, forecasts the NAEA.
Some 46 per cent of National Association of Estate Agent members think demand for property will increase in the year ahead although rather fewer believe there will be anything like a comparable increase in supply.
Twenty one per cent of NAEA members think levels of stock will decrease while 33 per cent expect supply to stay the same - which, combined with a rise in demand, will mean a heightened housing shortage.
When asked what events in 2015 will have the biggest impact on the housing market, the top three greatest influences were base rate rise (34 per cent), the recently-announced changes to stamp duty (32 per cent) and the General Election (also 32 per cent).
The General Election will be a pivotal event for the housing market next year, with all three main parties pledging to build more homes should they be elected. We have already seen the current Government put policies in place in an attempt to tackle the problem, with the announcement of new garden city developments, as well as the reforms to stamp duty says Mark Hayward, managing director of the association.
These changes are still not enough. The lack of capacity within the current market means that the gap between supply and demand probably won't close for some time - we currently don't have the resources to respond to the problem, and this is another issue that needs addressing says Hayward.
Meanwhile in the portals' war, Humberts - which with parent company Chestertons was a founder of Agents' Mutual - says it is retaining Rightmove as its portal of choice when it lists on the new AM website OnTheMarket.
A statement issued from the firm also included a quote from Ian Westerling, managing director of Humberts, saying: Onthemarket.com is clearly going to be a game-changer in the property portal sector and we firmly believe that it will help us expose our properties to the widest possible audience.
The statement also says OnTheMarket.com has already secured 4,000 members and intends to increase their [sic] publicity in the run up to the launch.
Humberts' decision to drop Zoopla was taken because Rightmove has consistently driven some excellent leads to our branch network and is committed to developing their [sic] offering to support our business according to the statement.
And there's an additional portal launching this month in addition to OnTheMarket.
Lookingforahouse.co.uk promises to generate leads by asking would-be buyers to say what they are willing to spend to buy or rent a property, allowing agents to offer homes that fit the budget.
A Your Price' feature on the website will enable consumers to specify their budget and input personal details - for example, name, email address and telephone number, viewing arrangements and dates. The effect will be to create high-quality leads that will be stored in your back office system says the portal in a recent approach to agents.
Having secured and on-passed this information, the agent will then have the opportunity to follow-up that lead or discard it.
Lookingforahouse.co.uk will also offer incentives to would-be buyers.
After a lead has been generated, the customer will receive a randomized discount voucher from a local business. Offering incentives will increase the site traffic to all parties involved therefore increasing the number of leads for agents and increasing custom to our discount voucher partners it says.
.png)
Comments