No fewer than 14 houses were sold in less than three hours after around 30 people slept outside Bidmead Cook estate agents last Thursday in a bid to purchase new homes in Aberdare, as the Welsh housing market continues to go from strength to strength.
Company director Gavin Williams said he had never seen buyers queuing overnight in his professional life, with people waiting for up to 18 hours before the 14 properties went on sale.
A rather surprised Williams told the press: “We didn’t expect this, we knew there would be plenty of interest but we didn’t think people would wait through the night.”
Williams met with the prospective purchasers on Thursday night, taking them donuts and coffee.
He added: “They were all in good spirits, they have all met their future neighbours now.
“We released the first phase of the houses back in October, and a couple of people missed out then. We sold 12 then and another 14 today.
“There were around 30 people waiting outside last night, but they were sat in couples. There were around 18 to 20 serious buyers.”
The development, Cwm Heulwen, features a range of three- and four-bedroom properties, with prices starting from £184,950.
Fellow estate agent director Jeanne Fry-Thomas told the BBC “[I] couldn’t believe my eyes” at the scene, as colleagues handed out coffee and donuts overnight to those waiting.
“It’s bouncing and it’s completely bonkers. It’s local people, people moving from outside the area, investors – it’s madness, our busiest offices are all the valleys offices.
“And we just don’t have the stock. The demand is there, but we don’t have the properties.”
Comments (17)
Definitely should have chosen another agent here-the developer would have got at least plus 10%
Tales of the unexpected.
Rhondda Cynon Taf has suffered with one of the highest rates of COVID infections in the UK .
This was all very unncessary .”Its bouncing” she said .
This contrived partial release of homes in a larger development where a registration process could easily have been conducted online avoiding this .
This attempt at some P.R., a spectacular backfire for Bidmead Cook .Fanning the flames of a very overhyped market
No developer releases all units at the same time
No they don’t but the agents had already released a 1st phase which was oversubscribed so fully aware of the demand for product here .
However that doesn’t excuse the fact that they could have undertaken the registration online
The very fact that they were on hand late on a Thursday night to hand out coffee and doughnuts indicates a high level of anticipation.
You might not know the area but RCT is a COVID hotspot
It goes to show that the U.K. simply needs to build, build, build and not stop until demand has been satisfied.
Expecting landlords to house people who should be in safe social housing rather than in the PRS, and expecting first time buyers to take on longer and longer mortgages and higher debts is, to quote the agent in this article, completely bonkers.
No it does not. Have you been to places like Cairio and see how that looks.
That would destroy wildlife which is vital for the eco system and the long term sustainability of the planet.
This is the butterflies bees, birds hedgehogs etc home.
The Uk needs less people – so stop immigration and encourage smaller families.
Funny you should mention that Jan. I’m sure there was a hedgehog in the queue for a new pad in Aberdare. He was outbid by the water vole, sadly.
Jan
“The Uk needs less people – so stop immigration and encourage smaller families”
Just a thought but have you considered moving to North Korea or China, your mindset should allow you to fit in perfectly.
UK needs less people like Jan.
Delightfully unaware of whose labour built her beloved empire lol.
Can’t write it.
Jan,
”The Uk needs less people – so stop immigration and encourage smaller families”
This comment made me slightly uncomfortable…You’re talking about ”Population control/management ”(which may appear as seemingly innocuous terms but they are fundamentally euphemistic pointers, towards some pretty unpalatable mechanisms).
You are all missing the point on Jan’s comment. There will not be much of a planet for us to air our opinions on come 2100 if the global economies do not change the way we live. Everything is connected. No bees, no crops d’oh! Everyone needs to wake up to this now, how many scientific based warnings does one need?
Global population is estimated to hit 10 billion by 2050 which will require 70% more food. Agriculture is the 3rd biggest polluter and includes all the carbon produced creating harmful chemicals we then consume on the plants or in meat and loss of habit to grow food and create space for animals we eat, often rainforests AKA ‘the lungs of the planet’ (don’t need them).
When temps rise 5 deg by 2100 there will be mass migration from hotter parts of the world like Africa, or whatever is left after the wars for resources like water. Not to mention all the people dispklaced by floods in Europe and rising seas across the globe (water expands in heat + polar ice caps). It will be absolute hell if everyone has the same attitude of ridiculing vegans or vegetarians or Greta or Sir Dave or 10,000s scientists.
Wake up and smell the deforestaiton coffee you all drink. Buy sustainable items only if you want them to be cheaper. Get a hybrid car or EV. Do more! Lower or stop your meat intake and reducing family sizes globally is a very good approach to reducing one of the top 5 contributers to 51 billion tonnes of carbon per year, if you want your kids and grandkids to have a good life. Or apply the ‘I won’t be around so who cares’ philosophy. Just don’t ever claim to be selfless.
You sound a right bundle of fun.
Oh wow, so many different things here.
1. Jan – This is not the right forum for your xenophobia and nationalism, nor do you appear to know how the industry works in all honesty.
2. AlwaysAnAgent & smile please – thank you for your comments, they always make me chuckle
3. BillyTheFish – for someone with a fishy name, you appear to not realize that around 80% of oxygen comes from algae (i.e. the ocean).
4. The population question – whist there may be around 7.8 billion people in the world, only 66.5 million are in the UK (around 0.87%). The UK produces 1.1% of global emissions, however our emission have dropped by 29% over the last decade. So on the whole, I’d like to think we’re doing ok.
Takeaway: We need to build more homes in the UK.
AW, just on the ‘chestnut’ of how much the UK has reduced its CO emissions. A lot of this reduction is because we have sent much of our industrial ‘production’ to places such as China and India. If you add in the emissions from all of the imports the figures tell a very different story.
flockfollower102, actually that’s not necessarily the case as the UK has reduced both consumption and CO2 production even when factoring in trade (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prod-cons-co2-per-capita?country=GBR).
However that’s an entirely different topic unrelated to this discussion about lack of homes being made available in the UK.
Thanks AW, an interesting website and set of data. No doubting the figures published, although I would be interested in the figures pre 1990 which was when the uk industrial capacity was significantly reduced in the 80’s.
In regards to building more houses, I agree to a degree, as supply and demand are the main factors in price. We seem to have an administration who do not understand that by hiking demand with ‘help to buy’ and similar they are just keeping the pressure on price.
I would also argue that the volume House builders are still building houses the way they have been built for 100 years. Logic says that if you increase the insulation levels and then drill holes in all the window frames to stop the inside of the house turning black, then something is fundamentally wrong with the building standards. Houses can be built to far higher efficiency and comfort levels with off the shelf materials now, but are 80 to 90% more efficient to run. More, better and by dint of high demand, cheaper to build houses are realistic if the politicians grasped the nettle!