October House Price Index – Know the Stats

Rightmove’s House Price Index was released to the media this morning and gives a national picture of house prices and activity over the past few weeks. For lettings, the quarterly Rental Trends Tracker released earlier this month gives an insight into what has been seen in the rental market over the last quarter.

SALES

Second-stepper sellers most likely to find a buyer before Christmas as prices jump 1.1%
• 1.1% (+£3,432) rise in average asking prices of 104,000 newly marketed properties compared to previous month
• New sellers ask higher prices in eight out of ten regions despite sales agreed numbers being down in nine of the ten this month compared to September 2016
• Average time to find a buyer is 63 days, so with Christmas 69 days away which sellers have the best odds of festive cheer?
• Most likely to sell are second-stepper properties, with average time to find a buyer of 60 days, followed by first-time-buyer type properties at 62 days
• Top of the ladder properties take 76 days on average so less likely to sell before Christmas
• Northern sellers more likely to find a buyer with sales agreed numbers down by a modest 3.0% on September 2016, compared to the South where sales are faring worse, down by 7.9%
• In spite of a more challenging environment, sales agreed numbers year-to-date are still 1.1% ahead of 2016

Rightmove director – The average time from first advertising on Rightmove to being marked as sale agreed by an estate agent is 63 days. However, national averages mask many regional and sector variations. The properties that are moving the quickest are in the second stepper property sector, those with three or four bedrooms except four bedroom detached, where the average time taken to find a buyer is 60 days. Typical first-time-buyer type properties, with two bedrooms or fewer, also just undercut the average with time to sell being 62 days.

RENTALS

• First Autumn rental price standstill as South East records annual fall
• National asking rents outside London dropped by 0.2% in the third quarter of 2017, the first drop recorded at this time of year
• Drop fuelled by the South East with rents down 2.3% on last quarter, and down annually for the first time, due to steadily increasing supply since last year’s second home stamp duty changes
• In London asking rents are at their lowest at this time of year since 2013, though a drop in supply and increased demand could mean rental prices will start to rise again soon
• Properties taking 8% longer to find a tenant outside London and 5% longer in London than in Q3 2016

If you want to secure your dream home by Christmas then book a market appraisal and we can tell you what your property is worth, alternatively if you need help or advice on letting out your property, our dedicated lettings team can help with that too.