A 20% increase on agreed sales year on year could see the property market through any potential blip after the end of SLDT reliefs at the end of March. Although Propertymark’s latest Housing Insight Report paints a mixed picture of the sales market, with a decrease in the number of prospective buyers, there is a slight upturn in supply and year-on-year improvement in sales volume in the February numbers.
Members of the estate agency membership body reported a 6.9% decrease in potential buyers registering in February, down to 81 from 87 the previous month. New supply climbed slightly, with 10.7 homes placed per sale per member branch (an increase of just under 2% since January).
Agreed sales remained static, but reflected an improvement compared to the previous three years. Although sales volume remains significantly lower than February’s year-on-year 2021 peak, the latest figures show a 20% improvement on last year; with many of those sales set to complete in April, May and June on the basis of current home buying timescales.
While the increase triggered by the Stamp Duty changes will begin to drop off now the thresholds have increased Propertymark CEO Nathan Emerson says the traditionally busy spring and summer period should even out things out.
Referring to the SDLT threshold changes, he explained:
“[The increase] spurred on a spike in momentum which is likely to tail off in line with previous trends seen on the back of property tax changes. Moving forward however, these additional Stamp Duty changes will likely be absorbed into the overall price of the property allowing a healthy mix of properties and prospective buyers to continue as we move into the historically popular spring and summer months to buy and sell.”
Although the report notes that ‘affordability remains a challenge for over a third of people’, there has been a slight increase in the value of new mortgage commitments. According to Phil Spencer, founder of Move iQ, this increase reflects a growing confidence in the market.
He commented:
“For many buyers and sellers, the biggest obstacle is that of affordability and trying to balance their expenses alongside interest rates. First-time buyers are also facing the brunt of increasing costs. Support for them is at a low whilst the size of the deposit needed to climb onto the housing ladder increases.
“However, the prospect of cheaper borrowing in the months ahead may well now provide greater confidence to potential home movers to put their plans into action.”
In other key findings, members reported ‘encouraging signs’ in the average time between offer acceptance to exchange contracts, which currently stands at 17 weeks. However, the report warns that this figure ‘remains challenging and high’.
See the full report at https://www.propertymark.co.uk/resource/housing-insight-report-february-2025.html
