The supply of homes on the market has fallen to a new low, with just 386,000 properties currently for sale in England and Wales – 47% fewer than in 2008.
The claim comes from property search engine Home which says that while new supply ticked up, more properties came off the market than came on it.
Home, which gathers data from virtually every single estate agency website and all the portals in the UK, said that the shortage has pushed average asking prices this month up to £287,891 – 8.2% higher than in January last year.
Home also said that average asking prices across England and Wales are up 0.3% on December – the highest rise for January since the onset of the financial crisis and at odds with normal seasonal trends.
Typical time on the market is now 117 days.
Home director Doug Shephard said that the trends of rising prices above the rate of inflation and an ever-reducing supply of property for sale are likely to continue all this year.
He said: “Given such high levels of interest in property investment by both large and small investors, it is difficult to imagine prices going anywhere but up.
“Moreover, interest rates, another key market driver, remain at historic lows.
“First-time and next-time buyers are finding it nearly impossible to compete with the buy-to-let sector and renters look set to endure a wave of rent rises over the next couple of years.
“The ultra-low interest rate environment is allowing the gap between earnings and house prices to widen to historically dangerous levels, mainly in the south and east.
“This is clearly one of several unsustainable trends in the current booming market.”
Comments (6)
Saved me typing the same word for word!
I spent all of last year with two or three “For Sale” properties on my books – the rest were all under offer.
I can’t complain we banked as much in 2015 as we did in 2014.
The full (and free) Land Registry figures for my area aren’t in yet but it looks as though the number of transactions were down by at least 10%.
Don’t you just love election years?
This year (all 13 days of it) seems to have started well, but the fee war has already begun in earnest.
I just wish I could get people out of the “I’ll find first – after all, all you agents have told me I’ll sell mine in a heartbeat” mindset. They’re all sitting at home Ninja style looking at property portals (watching my words there) and waiting for their perfect next home which is never going to come on to the market because the owners of that one are doing exactly the same thing. Aaarrrggghhh!
Spot on. Traditionally it was the face to face meeting with an agent that provided the encouragement to list, which kept the stocks up with no sale = no fee. Now the web only portals are charging upfront or within 9 months which provided no encouragement to a vendor to speculate. How often has one been told by a vendor I’m only selling if I can have the other property you are advertising on your books, only to go and buy another property, often with another agent. I always tell my vendors there is every possibility if there is nothing today, there may be tomorrow just as your buyer wasn’t able to see your property yesterday.
The cleaned of duplications and oddities Land registry data for the rolling full year to end November 2015 shows a total of 883571 transactions down 10.75%. YTE Nov14 was 980556.
I wonder if these figures also taken into account the issues reported with Ghost listings and duplicate properties, if not the stock levels are even more acute!
We have all been used to limited available stock for some time as what is priced correctly sells in days. However getting transactions through to completion is where the high street estate agent comes into their own, knowing the property, the area, building a rapport with the client and the buyer and working for several months from point of offer to completion.
The seller is lead too often by the industry saying things like we can sell your house quickly, sold in days etc as a result many sellers think cheap is fine. The sooner agents stop focusing on how quickly they can find a buyer, explaining the work involved and that they will be in a relationship with the client for at least 3 months more than likely 6 the better. When a problem arises they will also be there to talk to and meet face to face this is where good agents stand out and add value. Its one thing to find a buyer in a week it’s another to have a happy satisfied client at the end of the process.
If ever there was a time that investors in web only business needed to be worried it is now, for people like PurpleB, EasyP etc are never going to cover their overheads and a return to their investors, their fees are based simply on volume business which is dwindling and really isn’t news, as any person in their right mind has seen the stock dropping for over 2 years know?