A review of the housing market - record house prices, stamp duty sales congestion and more!

Our sales Director Tony Wing DipSurv RICS FNAEA reviews the property market with record house prices, Stamp Duty sales congestion, important decisions for would-be buyers and sellers and just maybe, there is just a glimpse of light now at the end of the Covid tunnel for us all?

Despite the latest lockdown, buyer interest remains buoyant as the Halifax reports average UK house prices reached record levels. But delays are building up in the sales system and there are rising concerns about a downturn in the market as unemployment grows and the end of the stamp duty holiday looms ever closer.

The sale price of the average home has risen to more than £250,000, reports the Halifax the UK's biggest mortgage lender, with UK house prices in October 7.5% higher than a year ago.

Demand for larger homes has risen, with working from home and extended inter-family living leading to many seeking more flexible interior and exterior living space.

However, they consider that recessionary economic concerns are likely to put downward pressure on prices in early 2021 and there are already signs that property values month-on-month are slowing.

The Halifax’s opinion is that government intervention, with the extension to the furlough scheme, the Stamp Duty holiday and other schemes, has merely delayed a downturn and the future of the housing market remains uncertain.

In October, they reported prices continued to rise, with a 5.3% gain over the past four months, the strongest since 2006, the Halifax said.

The Nationwide Building Society’s house price report mirrors the house price trend reported by the Halifax. Both lenders base their market reports on their own mortgage data – not Land Registry sale price data, which many consider a more reliable guide to market price movements. However, there is a two-month time lag in this data becoming available, making it a very difficult source of market information from which to make month on month market trend forecasts. The Nationwide concluded that the average UK house price was lower, at £227,826.

At Robert Bell & Company we have noted that prices for larger homes across the county are where the most significant price growth has been seen lockdown 0.1. For example, since March the Halifax reports that prices for flats were up by just 2% compared with a 6% increase for a typical detached property. In cash terms that equates to a £2,883 increase for flats and a £27,371 rise for detached homes. However, some property pundits are already commenting that this COVID market trend may not be long-lasting and that we will soon see people returning to office-based work in larger numbers than previously envisaged just a months ago. Then flats only a few minutes from one’s workplace may become more appealing than a house twenty or more miles away if you having to go into the office four days a week.

At present, despite lockdown 0.2, we are still achieving excellent levels of buyer inquiries and good sales and sale prices continue to be achieved across all our offices. However, delays are building in the sales system, with solicitors/conveyancers, local searcher providers and mortgage lenders struggling to keep up with the demand. We can foresee some sales agreed in late January 2021 struggling to complete before the end of the Stamp Duty Holiday on 31^st March. So if you are at currently giving serious consideration to selling and buying a home, we would strongly advise you act now.

Some property pundits now believe, that as soon the market perceives it has become too late to push through a property sale before the end of March, there could well then prove to be a significant fall-off in demand. There has been some talk about the government extending the Stamp Duty scheme through to the end of May next year. Wishful thinking? We shall see. Could the introduction of the first effective Covid vaccine to the UK population create a positive bounce in the UK economy and the property market for Spring 2021? Again, we shall have to wait and see.  In times of such uncertainty, it feels like anything might be possible!

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