Market Comment – September 2022

I know that for many of us, September has been an unsettling month with the mourning period for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and I am aware that this has been a difficult time for many of us.

Turning to the economic situation, we have seen unsettling times there too, not to mention the mini budget on the 23rd September which resulted in a large number of mortgage products being withdrawn. Personally, I am perplexed at how the powers that be who deliver our news, whether it be electronically or whatever, seem to focus on the bad news and not the good news. I realise that the Pound hit an almost low against the Dollar, but within a week it was up over 10%, but I couldn’t find any articles regarding that, which reminded me of a colleague from the United States commenting that the British news machine seems to just focus on the negative. So, I thought this an opportune market to report to you our statistics, which clearly show a positive view on the market.

Right across the group, from new homes, including our latest instruction in Purley with houses at £1,300,000 to the perhaps more affordable accommodation at £200,000, last weekend we saw a slight drop in the amount of viewings, but an increase in the number of offers and therefore, whilst I appreciate this doesn’t make startling headlines, this represents a healthy stable housing market in our areas.

Turning to the lettings market, once again I rolled my eyes as I read the news that landlords would be selling because their mortgage rates had gone up and I appreciate this grabs the attention of some people, but on the positive side, we are month in and month out registering more people. I confess, I don’t know and it’s too early to surmise whether this is because of the rise of interest rates, but I shall be closely monitoring on this and reporting back to you. To add to the positive news, the threshold announced in the mini budget for stamp duty, has been raised to £250,000 from its current £125,000 and the threshold for first time buyers has been increased from £300,000 to £425,000. These changes should remove 2,100 people from paying stamp duty.

I fully appreciate on the back of so much negative propaganda the public worries, but I would urge anyone to contact me or a member of staff and we would be only too happy to help you and offer you free advice.

I look forward to reporting back to you in November.