Good news for property owners looking to sell; The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has reported that sales expectations have ‘’risen sharply’’ according to a survey of property professionals. House sales rose in December for the first time in seven months, boosted mainly by higher activity in London and the South East of England.
The report for December suggested that interest from new buyers was increasing over many parts of England and Wales, with the RICS’ chief economist saying:
“The signals from the latest RICS survey provides further evidence that the housing market is seeing some benefit from the greater clarity provided by the decisive election outcome. Whether the improvement in sentiment can be sustained remains to be seen given that there is so much work to be done over the course of this year in determining the nature of the eventual Brexit deal. However, the sales expectations indicators clearly point to the prospect of a more upbeat trend in transactions emerging with potential purchasers being more comfortable in following through on initial enquiries.”
The Office of National Statistics’ (ONS) new set of figures suggested that house prices grew by 2.2% up to November 2019, showing a 0.9% increase when compared with the year up to October. Further to this, the latest ONS house price index showed that house prices had jumped 7.8% in Wales, whereas average house prices in England increased by 1.7% to £251,000. Scotland also saw a rise of 3.5% and Northern Ireland saw a rise of 4%.
According to the HomeOwners Alliance, the average UK home is now worth £235,298. Prices were shown to have increased by an overall figure of 2.1% in 2019, once all the figures and indices across the UK had been collated and examined.
Other property experts and high street banks have also weighed in with predictions on a future upturn in the market. Rightmove have predicted a 2% rise in the price of property during 2020, which was mirrored by the HomeOwners Alliance.
Nationwide have predicted that the economy will “continue to expand at a modest pace in 2020, with house prices remaining broadly flat over the next 12 months.” Halifax were also reserved with their predictions, mentioning that they “expect a modest pace of gains to continue into the next year.”
While it seems that increases are small and steady, they are increases all the same – meaning that homeowners can finally rejoice at this newfound market growth. We hope you have enjoyed this update and if you have any questions about what we have discussed above, feel free to get in contact.
12 February 2020
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