Two of the UK’s leading estate agencies this week called the bottom of the market, revealing that buyers are returning, the number of house sales is picking up and that, in some areas, prices are even rising again after months of huge drops.
Knight Frank says that “the situation has improved markedly since the turn of the year” and that although prices continue to fall in the first four months of the year, it was at a “much reduced pace”.
“We’ve seen drops of between one and two per cent a month as opposed to to the three to four per cent monthly drops we became routinely used to in the run up to the end of 2008,” a spokesperson says.
“And by April our prime central London index even managed to post a positive result, with prices climbing 0.4 per cent – the first rise for 13 months.”
Another high profile agent, Hamptons International, is also feeling much more positive – revealing this week that 13 per cent more buyers registered with it in April year on year, and that sales jumped by 27 per cent over the same period.
“There have been three consistently good months of UK sales activity and although this is not at the boom time levels of 2007, it is certainly better than for some time,” says Jane Jordgensen of Hamptons International.
“In fact, vendors are three times more likely to secure a sale than this time last year. The start of 2009 has definitely gone as well as expected and we are beginning to witness healthy levels of trading.”
The only problem for agents is a shortage of houses to sell – Hamptons says the number of new instructions is down 40 per cent year on year, while Knight Frank reports properties available for sale down by 28 per cent.
Neither company can say for sure why the market is improving – given continued gloomy headlines in the nation’s papers – but a partial answer lies in mortgage affordability which the Council of Mortgage Lenders says is at its cheapest since 2004.
