News Review: Housing Review


Housing market confidence still under pressure services,


by Michael Stoop, managing director, Xperience


the 2010 housing market has thrown up many different challenges and even the weather helped to throw a ‘dampner’ on the market with the snow in January, February and december deterring an already sceptical buyer population to stay at home rather than look at properties for sale! 2010 was definitely a year


of two halves with our agents reporting fairly healthy pipelines in January and we then continued to see a good level of sales on the back of pent up demand versus a shortage of good properties for sale. We were also seeing a very healthy level of lettings business due to the continued shortage of lending by banks and building societies. Letting became the only option to all but the privileged few first-time buyers who had sufficient deposits and a clean credit history, to enable a purchase at the first time buyer end of the chain.


HIPs With the new coalition government in place during may, we saw the almost immediate suspension of HiPs which in turn created a ‘spike’ of new properties on to the market and eventually put the brakes on what had been a fairly good first six months for those agents that offered sales, lettings and management, financial


conveyancing,


HiPs and other insurance products, sold on the back of letting properties. the abolition of HiPs certainly encouraged more sellers to test the market without the need or cost of a HiP and as a result, house prices have in some areas, started to fall back once again. Price sensitivity is now


critical to sellers if they are a serious mover, the buyer has so much more choice than in the first six months of 2010 and the position of most sellers is not as strong as it was. this is not to say however that the bargain hunters’ day has come! Well priced, well presented properties in popular locations will always sell, whatever the market is doing.


Transactions as the year closed, the market KPis were not encouraging; the cmL reported only £135bn of lending in 2010 (against £360bn in 2007) and the estate agency market saw as few as 600,000 transactions in 2010 and with the demise of the mass buy-to-let market, growing a lettings agency business is getting tougher and tougher. With these statistics the previous estate agency model will not be sustainable and agents are going to have to work at being a lot smarter than ever before if they are going to survive going forward. the cmL also expects


mortgage advances to total £135-140 billion during 2011, unchanged from this year. it also expects some mortgage payers to have difficulty with repayments. it


12 mortgage introducer FEBRUARY 2011


predicts there will be 40,000 homes repossessed in 2011, up from about 36,000 this year and against an original forecast of around 75,000. the banks and building societies are doing all they can to manage this sensibly, although probably politically driven.


“Price sensitiv- ity is now crit- ical to sellers. If they are a serious mover, the buyer has so much more choice than in the first six months of 2010 and the posi- tion of most sellers is not as strong as it was. This is not to say however that the bargain hunters’ day has come!”


Cautious Staying with 2011, caution still abounds with consumers holding tight to their money. interest rates remain low at the moment but, with inflation now starting to rise further (3.7%), how much longer can interest rates


remain at 0.5%? When they rise, how much will they rise to and will this then send further shock waves through the property sector? Business in the city


remains good although the FtSe 100 has now become almost commodity led and questions remain over whether the coalition government get their way with capped bonuses of the bankers - many of whom are the life blood of the property market in London. the London market will


always have its own micro climate, helped by overseas buyers who believe that owning a property in London is still a ‘must have’ for their investment portfolios. the rest of the uK still has


its hot spots that are normally more resilient than others but, in the main, i expect prices to hold up reasonably well except maybe in the north, where the coalition austerity measures and job cuts may hit hardest.


Few buyers We saw a worrying lack of buyers in the latter part of 2010 and early 2011 and whether this is just an anomaly we shall have to wait and see. there have also been


fewer properties currently on the market which in the short term may help rid some of the oversupply of property currently on the market and return us to the conditions we had for the first six months of 2010. i expect 2011 to be yet


another tough year in the housing market, but we still remain positive.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56