Well, we wondered what was going to happen this month, what with the Olympics being finished and everyone finally having their children back at school. We expected it to be busy. However, we didn’t expect it to be THIS busy! The property market has taken off in a way that we really didn’t expect. This month we’ll give you an indication of what we have been seeing happening in the property market but first we’ll have a wee look at what has been reported in the media this past month.
This Month in the Media – Property Market News
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) reported this month that the housing market in the UK remained ‘flat’ and ‘subdued’ with the amount of money lent for mortgages having fallen ever so slightly in August compared to July’s figures, with this August being 4% down on August 2011. They predicted, however, that the new Funding for Lending scheme, where the Bank of England will lend money to financial institutions at below-market rates, with a view to them lending that to potential home owners and businesses, might have a more positive effect on the housing market in the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19660523
The Council of Mortgage Lenders also revealed the good news that the level of deposit that First Time Buyers need fell to its lowest level for some time. They reported that mortgage deposit levels for first-time buyers have fallen below 20% for the first time in more than three years. The average first-time deposit fell in July to 19%, the lowest level since November 2008. This clearly suggests that First Time Buyers are finding it easier than they have for a while to gather the amount of money required to secure a mortgage to buy a property. This is backed-up by our own experience in these past few months where the proportion of properties that we are selling in the First Time Buyer part of the market has gone up. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19568911
What Have We Been Seeing Happening in the Scottish Property Market This Month?
There have been offers flying in left, right and centre. We have been totally overwhelmed by the volume of offers coming in, in fact. Just last week, at the time of writing, we received something in the region of 20 offers during the week. 36 properties Under Offer in less than 3 weeks and 50-plus offers at the time of writing. Hearteningly, the range of properties selling has been from around £80,000 to £500,000 and above and it is nice to see properties selling in every area and every price bracket across the board.
Somebody quite clearly smarter than me suggested to us that this might coincide with people wanting to be in their new house before Christmas. It is hard to disagree with this idea. With the average date of entry being around 6 to 8 weeks after an offer is accepted, this would mean that anyone who has an offer accepted at the moment is likely to be in their new home by the middle of November.
That is not to say that time is running out for getting your house on the market and getting your property sold this year. We found last year that buying activity continued strongly right until the end of the year. It seems that although September and October is traditionally a very busy time in the property market, people still want to keep looking and don’t mind if that means that they won’t be moving into their new house until the new year.
It seems nevertheless that the rush is on for people to get their properties on the market. We have again been absolutely damaged by new sellers this month. There is always a perception that the market cools down towards Christmas. In our experience, this is of course true. Demand does drop slightly as we move towards the holiday period. However, this is coupled with the number of properties that are on coming to the market reducing drastically because sellers believe that the market is quiet for buyers.
The net result of all of this is that the demand and supply levels are really quite well matched and the amount of activity that we see in the marketplace during this period remains high, considering the reduced number of properties that are coming onto the market. In short, it is not a bad time at all to be trying to sell your property and in fact we saw a very healthy level of activity in November and December last year. In fact we saw 37 properties go under offer in this period.
If you’re looking for any advice about whether now is a good time to be selling and whether the demand is high for the type of property that you’re thinking of selling, of course please don’t hesitate just to give us a call or drop us an email and we’ll be happy to advise!
