The property drought is continuing with listings down 4.6% on a year ago and average new asking prices barely changed, Rightmove reported this morning.
However, the portal says that pent-up interest in property is high, with someone contacting one of its agents every second.
It said that asking prices have hit record highs in four UK regions, where new listings are down 0.3% on a year ago. However, elsewhere listings have dropped an average of 6.5%.
The average new asking price is now £308,290, just 0.1% up on this time last year. The average is hugely boosted by London’s average new asking price of £621,589, compared with an average new asking price of £153,752 in the north east.
The portal’s data does show other significant regional variations, with new asking prices in Wales, the west and east midlands, and the north-west of England all up.
Average new asking prices in Wales are up 2.1% annually to £200,386 and have increased by the same percentage to £198,399 in the north-west.
Sellers in the east midlands are also asking more for their properties, increasing asking prices by an average of 2.5% to £228,927, while asking prices for properties in the west midlands have had average increases of 3% to £232,247.
The portal claims this is a sign of the typical spring bounce in the market.
While average new asking prices across England and Wales are almost static annually, they are up 0.9% on a monthly basis this month, Rightmove said.
Agency stock increased to 50 properties per agent on average in April, up from 48 in March and 47 a year before, while average time on the market hit a six-month low of 64 days.
Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said: “In spite of some of the challenges in the market, interest in property remains very high.
“People’s ongoing desire to satisfy their pent-up housing needs means that on average someone contacts an agent on Rightmove every second.”
Comments (7)
Now that BestAgent Marketplace is importing applicants from all 3 portals we’re beginning to see some interesting overall trends appearing, although these observations aren’t of specific use to individual agents.
Across all three portals, only 37.2% of enquiries about specific properties accept an invitation to view that property.
Broken into Sales and Lettings, it’s 54% and 32% of enquiries respectively, which convert into viewing requests.
Unsurprisingly, lettings enquiries outnumber sales enquires by approximately 4:1 across all three portals.
This is from a small but growing sample of traditional agents across England and Scotland who are using the real time portal data feeds and lead importing and online viewing booking function in their free BestAgent Marketplace accounts, so that they can see precisely where their leads, viewings and deals are originating and measure the effectiveness of their marketing spend on each portal.
The data above is from a one-month period, so it’s too early to show conversion rates into offers and deals.
There was a belting RM lead on Twitter yesterday! Mr S.M.F.D (his initials) very funny.
Everyday an agency leaves Rightmove. Goodbye.
Most of the enquiries received are as genuine as the average Trustpilot review
Miles Shipside, director of Rightmove, said: “In spite of some of the challenges in the market, interest in property remains very high.”
…and the CEO of a national supermarket chain, added: “In spite of some of the challenges in the market, interest in food still remains very high.”
It’s this sort of groundbreaking insight that absolutely justifies RM’s fee increases
Quantity NOT Quality Rightmove!
Timewasters every second!!! Just what we don’t need!
I’d rather have RM leads than Z or OTM.
most are on phone, and at least we don’t get any of those emails contacting every agent in the city at once.