A new year means a new start, but is that the case in 2022? Azeem Salemohamed of estate agent Sandra Davidson looks at the east London statistics for December to consider whether we’re on track for some kind of normality.
Normality in the housing market went out of the window almost two years ago, but as we approach our third spring in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s interesting to reflect on what will happen to the sector in 2022.
While the omicron variant means covid infections are rising, hospital admissions aren’t, and we haven’t faced another lockdown. However, we are starting to see the effects of the bank of England’s interest rate increase from 0.1% to 0.25%.
To explore what’s going on in more detail, let’s look at the December data from Rightmove for our east London patch, compared to the previous year.
While holiday periods historically meant a slower market, this is no longer the way the world works. With all the online technology at our disposal, the past few years haven’t seen much of a festive slow down.
Buying and selling at the same time?
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Buying and selling at the same time?
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In December 2020 there were 1,940 properties for sale in the patch compared to 1,173 in 2021. Looking at new instructions there were 363 in December 2020 against just 184 last year. And for sales agreed the figures were 334 in 2020 but 210 in 2021. In terms of people looking at properties, there were around 2million detailed views in December 2020 and 1.5million in 2021.
To truly measure demand, it’s useful to look at the proportion of views per property. In December 2020 there were 1,058 views for every property, but this grew to 1,315 in 2021 – an increase of 24%. This is really interesting because it shows that high demand is still there, even though the supply is limited.
The number of properties on the market and new listings are both down by 50%. The question is why? Is it because vendors are taking a step back to see what will happen now that the stamp duty holiday is over? Did the threat of interest rate rises, the holiday season and uncertainty over omicron combine to make sellers cautious in December? Or are they simply unable to buy, even if they are getting a premium for their own properties, because they can’t fund an onward purchase?
Any market is triggered by the first-time buyers who start off the chain. These people are still buying and creating the demand. But prices have reached such a peak – they rose by 8% last year – that vendors are not putting their houses on the market to create the supply.
Even though there are fewer properties on the market, we at Sandra Davidson achieved 11 sales in December. While new listings were down across the patch, we have taken on a bigger share of the market – all thanks to the hard work, and keen market knowledge of our team. So, if now is the right time for you to sell, for whatever reason, give us a call. We’ll help you devise the perfect strategy for current conditions.
In the meantime, a belated Happy New Year. It will be interesting to see what 2022 brings – starting with February.
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