The anticipated slump in completions following the end of stamp duty incentives has not dampened confidence in the property market with three-quarters (72%) of conveyancers confident in the stability of the current market.
The Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ (CLC) second Confidence Tracker shows a sizeable uplift in positivity when 55% of those surveyed in the first Confidence Tracker said they were confident in the stability of the current market.
Double the number of professionals took part in the second iteration of the survey which also highlighted four in five conveyancers confirmed they completed on the ‘vast majority’ of transactions before the SDLT cut off on 1st April, despite many saying it has been their busiest period on record.
The tracker also showed 27% thought the conveyancing process was getting faster and more efficient, an increase of 10% from the previous quarter. Transaction times show little sign of speeding up, however, with 82% still taking three to four months to complete from an offer being accepted.
This may be the reason why client confidence in the market remains low, suggests the CLC, with only around a third of conveyancers believing sellers had any at all. Buyers were thought to be more optimistic, up from 29% to 46%.
Commenting on the latest findings Stephen Ward, head of strategy and external relations at the CLC, said:
“It’s pleasing that confidence in the market has not waned despite the predicted slowdown in activity once the stamp duty deadline had passed. However, it still means that almost one in three conveyancers are not confident about the current climate and client confidence is far from where we would like it to be.
“We urge conveyancers to engage with the work of the Home Buying and Selling Council and Digital Property Market Steering Group and consider the many opportunities to make improvements to their processes and tools that will benefit their clients and their businesses, reducing transaction times, and improving security and accuracy.”
The quarterly tracker was launched at the start of this year to gauge the views of the profession on the state of the home buying and selling market.
