Market Comment – June 2017

Mixed reactions with the general election outcome in that most people expected Theresa May to be our Prime Minister a month on from my last market comment, however she is Prime Minister without a majority in the house of commons and some of the pundits see this as a period of uncertainty. The good news is, this uncertainty does not appear to be focused on the housing market and a month on from my last report to you, all the politicians still seem to be focused on providing many more homes to meet the demand in the short and medium term.

Turning to our own figures it has been a stable month with a few spike surprises, one being we had more new house build enquiries both for apartments and houses in June then we did in any other month this year.

It was also a surprise that in June we registered more prospective investors than any other month in 2017, despite tax changes and the buy to let market which has weakened in 2017 both locally and nationally.

I had a quick look at statistics and in February 2016, there were 10,300 buy to let purchases compared with 5,300 in April this year and the council of mortgage lenders has cut its forecast for buy to let lending from 38 billion to 35 billion in 2017, reducing to 33 billion in 2018.

Our prospective purchaser enquiries remain stable throughout May and June with no apparent change in property asking prices and the same can be said for the residential lettings market, in that by and large there was a shift of less than 1% with regard to prospective tenants registering and new homes to let coming to the market.

I am pleased to be able to dispel the myth that July and August have traditionally been quieter months as we are expecting a very solid sales and lettings month ahead and in particular in New Homes and this includes investment purchases.

Before I finish I thought I would give you some interesting facts that 24,261,942 people use East Croydon station every year and therefore it is no surprise that this has an enormous allure for the brand of Croydon. 1 in 4 properties are leasehold and Croydon rents have increased by 33.3% since 2005.

I look forward to reporting to you during the month with some more facts and figures.

Gary O’Hare