According to Rightmove, there are signs that the increased home-hunter activity is fuelling a recovery in the number of sales agreed.
In the final three months of 2017 these were running at an average drop of -5.5 per cent compared to the prior year. Taking the first full month of 2018 as a snapshot, sales agreed numbers in January have now recovered to -1.6 per cent down compared to a year ago.
There are marked local market differences. The Rightmove analysis of properties that have been newly listed since October 2017 and have been marked as 'sale agreed' reveals that several of the top ten fastest selling locations are the East Midlands.
The average house price in the East Midlands is £217,646, up 1.9 per cent on January, with properties taking on average just 65 days to sell – compared with 83 days in Greater London and 92 days in the North East. In Corby, where Allison Homes has developments, the number of days before a sale is agreed is just 22 days.
Demand for housing remains resilient, with an active start to 2018. Indeed, the number of monthly visits to Rightmove in January is at its highest ever level, at over 141 million. This has helped to fuel a degree of cautious optimism among new-to-the-market sellers in most regions of the UK, with average asking prices up by 0.8 per cent (+£2,414) this month.
Miles Shipside, Rightmove director and housing market analyst told, us: “While it’s the norm for new sellers’ asking prices to be buoyant at the start of the year, the first complete month in 2018 is seeing more pricing optimism than the comparison period in 2017. The political and economical uncertainty is out of sellers’ control, but they are in control of their asking prices, and in general they are not being over-ambitious and setting too high an asking price. This month’s rise of 0.8 per cent is well below the 1.6 per cent monthly average over the past 10 years. It is wise for sellers to be cautious and not to over-price given stretched buyer affordability.”
