Listings appear to be taking longer to sell but buyer and seller confidence remains, OnTheMarket (OTM) claims.
The portal’s latest Property Sentiment Index shows the percentage of homes reaching sold subject to contract (SSTC) within 30 days has dropped from 50% in April 2022 to 37% last month. The figure is slightly down from 38% in March 2023.
The percentage of homes selling within 60 days has increased from 19% to 21% between April 2022 and 2023. Meanwhile 19% of homes reached SSTC within 150 days last month, up from 10% in April 2022. Jason Tebb, chief executive of OnTheMarket, suggested, "we now live in different times.Market conditions were very different then with double-digit price growth and the ‘race for space’ in full swing. Now, a welcome element of stability has returned, with the numbers perhaps impacted by the Easter holidays and the traditional seasonal dip in the market when families are away and house hunting isn’t a priority.”
The index found that 70% of active buyers in the UK were confident that they would purchase a property within the next 3 months, while 64% of sellers in the UK were confident that they would sell, broadly in line with previous reports.
Tebb said, "there are usually regional variations as there’s no such thing as a uniform property market but highlights that there was little fluctuation across the country in April. As far as the housing market is concerned, April was all about getting back to ‘business as usual. This is the new normal, and reassuringly, it looks a lot like the old one. A level of stability has returned to the market after a period of unprecedented uncertainty created by September’s mini-Budget, which sent the price of fixed-rate mortgages soaring. Inflation seems to be on the way down, albeit more slowly than hoped, and while another interest rate rise can’t be ruled out, market forecasts suggest that we’re nearing the end of these increases.”
Property industry calls on government to speed up homebuying process
A coalition of property businesses have called on the government to support improving speed and efficiency in the home buying and selling process.
In an open letter to the Secretary of State for Housing Michael Gove MP, businesses including Landmark Information Group, Mortgage Advice Bureau, L&C Mortgages, Yopa, Simplify, O’Neill Patient, Enact, and TwentyCi, have set out their collective desire to work with the government to ensure that the home buying and selling process works better for movers and businesses.
The industry called for support as they market has been getting slower and less responsive, with transactions reported to take 133 days to complete, almost 80% longer than in 2007, according to data from Landmark Information Group. Simon Brown, chief executive for Landmark Information Group said, “the UK’s home-moving process suffers from systemic challenges, with duplication and inefficiencies leading to delays for home-movers. This is both stressful and frustrating for home-movers, and enormously wasteful for property professionals. We want to create a more efficient and better-connected market, where everyone benefits from shared data and insights. To achieve this ambition, we’re bringing the industry together to call on Government to drive forward reform to make the home-moving process work better for everyone.”
The letter calls on the government to work alongside businesses across the sector to create a new ‘Time to Buy’ strategy that will set out a plan for the future of the market and support businesses to take up technology and innovative solutions.
Verona Frankish, chief executive at Yopa, said, “the Time to Buy strategy is vital for the continued health of the property market, and the needs of home movers all over the UK so that transactions can take place in a reasonable time frame and with certainty.”
Ben Thompson, deputy chief executive at Mortgage Advice Bureau, said, “the UK needs a fluid housing market where people who need to move home can do so with confidence and also with a far greater degree of ease. By solving this problem and achieving this, not only will this make people’s lives easier, but the UK economy will also benefit from the multiplier effect of more home moves each year, and that has to be a good thing too.”