New data from Rightmove reveals that a new record number of sellers came to market on Boxing Day, with a 26% increase in new sellers beating the previous record of last year.
Buyers also got their new year moving plans in motion on Boxing Day, with the number of buyers contacting estate agents about homes for sale nearly quadrupling (+273%) from Christmas Day, and 17% higher than Boxing Day last year.
Visits to the Rightmove platform nearly doubled (+84%) between Christmas Day and Boxing Day and were 8% higher than last year. Boxing Day traditionally signals the start of home-mover activity starting to ramp up following the usual lull over Christmas. Rightmove’s property expert Tim Bannister said:
“The scale of this year’s Boxing Day bounce is an early positive sign at the start of the year that buyers and sellers are out there and taking action, likely including some movers who had put their plans on hold last year. Whilst it is early days, it will be key to monitor activity as it ramps up through the end of winter and into spring, particularly to track whether sellers are pricing attractively enough to agree a sale with a buyer quickly, given buyers now have more choice to consider than last year and are still very price sensitive.”
Commenting on the data, Nathan Emerson CEO Propertymark said that positivity is “clearly resonating on the property market” even though Christmas is normally a quiet period for the property sector. He continued:
“Rightly so, sellers are clearly not deterred by the latest inflation figures or interest rates as optimistic signs start to emerge and are demonstrating confidence in the market. This is the positive type of news that Propertymark hopes to see more of throughout 2024.”
What’s more, research by Yopa has also revealed that thousands of sellers have re-listed their homes for sale in the new year, offering savvy homebuyers the chance to secure an asking price discount. Yopa analysed data on the number of homes that have returned to the market across Britain having previously failed to find a buyer in 2023. The average price of these homes has then been compared to the wider average price of homes that remained listed for sale to see what kind of discount buyers can expect from a property that has come back to the market in 2024.
The data shows that there are currently 2,019 properties that have returned to the market across Britain, having previously failed to sell. The largest proportion of returning homes are located in the South East of England which currently boasts 21% of the national total.
London and the East of England each have 13% of Britain’s returning homes, followed by the North West (9%), East Midlands (8%), West Midlands (8%), and Yorkshire & Humber (7%).
The analysis by Yopa shows that the average price of those properties to have re-entered the market comes in at an average of £362,244. Compared to the overall average British house price of £370,730, this is a discount of -£8,486, or -2.3%. In London the discount is -3.9%, followed by the East Midlands (-3.7%), South West (-2.7%), and North East (-2%). CEO of Yopa, Verona Frankish, commented:
“There will have been lots of motivated sellers entering the market towards the back end of 2023, sellers who would have been hopeful of securing a sale before the Christmas break as market conditions started to improve. However, not all of them will have managed to do so and whether it was due to a transaction collapsing, or simply to reset ahead of the January rush, many will have decided to pull their property listing and re-enter the market come the new year.
Now that 2024 is upon us, these sellers will be hoping to take advantage of strengthening market conditions and an uplift in buyer activity, but having already listed their home for sale once, many are likely to be offering a discount on their asking price in order to entice buyers to make an offer.”
Nathan Reilly, Director at Twenty7tec, said:
“A Boxing Day spike in properties coming onto the market tends to hit advisers in early January. This is fuelled by first time buyers, who largely leave the market in November, returning with gusto around 10th January. Last year we saw that January was the second busiest month of the year for first time buyers and January, February and March were the three busiest months of the year for first time buyers mortgage searches.”
