Market Comment – July 2022

There has been a divide of opinions with the pundits regarding the housing market and the rest of 2022.

Whilst it has been our experience that house prices moved up by approximately 0.1% from June to July, in line with a report by the guardian, this is still an increase, all be it small as apposed to some of the pundits talking about a more dramatic slowdown. The annual change from year to year still remains over 10% and there is still a shortage of properties amid the many people working from home, to name but 1 of the factors. Whilst some pundits have been surprised at the degree of momentum, given the rise in inflation I am still of the view that the public view bricks and mortar as a safe bet and like any commodity, prices are holding because demand is outweighing supply. My positivity in the housing market moving forward also factors in the fact that inflation may go up further in 2022. I still think that while the demand outweighs the supply, this will underpin a solid market.

Turning to the residential lettings market, we have seen a 6% drop in new properties coming to the market, compared with the same month in 2021, which suggests that there is less movement in the lettings market, which surprises me as I suspected post covid there would be more movement then there is at the moment. We are almost reaching record levels of between 8 and 9 tenants registering for every rental property that comes to the market and understandably, landlords are being extremely selective.

We had a busy month in July with New Homes sales and we are launching virtually one new development a month across the borough for the rest of 2022. I look forward to reporting back to you on the progress and I would urge any prospective purchasers, thinking about buying a new home to get in now as help to buy is set to finish in October this year.

I look forward to reporting back to you at the beginning of September.