Market Comment – April 2017

Whilst all around seem to be talking and concentrating on the United Kingdom triggering article 50, giving us 2 years to leave the European union, at Streets Ahead we marched on and produced very solid and stable results throughout March. There have been conflicting projections and reports in the newspapers, with the footsie reaching record highs, some house builders optimistic and some cautious even airing on the side of pessimistic, although all agree that we need to build more homes and the supply is not meeting the demand.

I was interested to read a lot on Theresa May, kick starting the Brexit process and the impact this will have on the housing market in Britain. However, I read in a recent report that 43% of Londoners think that UK house prices will rise once the country leaves the European union. I think a lot depends on the result of negotiations over the next 712 days and as I have mentioned, we still need to build many more homes of all sizes to meet the demand.

Turning to our own figures both on the residential Sales and Lettings market, our new house sales (second hand stock) was up 8% on the same month 2016, however the number of lets across our group was only up 2%, so great to see stable and much improved, but it goes to show that Croydon is bucking the trend once again when it comes to London house selling. We saw a marginal increase of 1% on the same month last year with rents achieved and new registrations for prospective tenants were up 5% on the same month last year. So all in all a healthy overview with no statistic decreasing.

Once again March saw good activity in the New Homes market and I was pleased to see the number of enquiries from prospective home owners and investors looking to buy new properties also remained healthy.

So from a business point of view, I am delighted with March and as I started this month’s market comment, March was best described as solid and steady. The outlook for April is already looking good, and I look forward to reporting back to you mid-April with interim results.

Gary O’Hare