1st January 2012

Welcome to 2012. We wish all our readers a happy and prosperous new year and would like to thank-you for reading our little monthly news items and for all the positive feedback we have received.

Past, present and future?

Last years property market was busy, particularly, and unusually, towards the end of the year. Property prices remained static throughout with some over optimistic pricing at the start of the year before vendors became more realistic, revised their expectations and market activity and property sales increased substantially.

In 2012 we expect property prices in our area to remain steady. We benefit from our proximity to London, good local road and rail links all of which tends to mean that where London prices lead our area will follow in due course. We don't expect to see the sort of price rise London has seen in the immediate future, but it all helps to sustain prices here.

Another factor maintaining house prices is the current shortage of housing. The population of the UK continues to rise, with almost a third choosing to live in and around London. Meanwhile households are becoming smaller, and we have observed a rise in the numbers of single buyers or couples where we used to see families occupying a home. To compound this the economic downturn has resulted in developers reducing the number of new homes they build.

The upshot is twofold. Rents across Britain, and locally, have risen substantially leading to a return of the buy-to-let investor attracted by a rate of return that is unlikely to be matched by the banks any time soon. Secondly, whilst much of the UK experiences a slump, the south-east has ridden the economic storm with relative ease.

One aspect of the property market that has changed over the last few years is the time taken between a sale being agreed and completion. It's got longer. This is largely due to an increase in the number of complications that arise, often related to cautious lending and difficulty securing mortgages. Though this began to ease last Autumn it has some way to go in our opinion. The rumours are low interest rates may be with us as far into the future as 2015 and that long term view has certainly resulted in many more attractive mortgage packages being offered. Meanwhile we were very busy, especially in December, working with Vendors, Buyers, solicitors and surveyors to ensure that chains progressed as smoothly as possible whatever the niggles were along the way.

 Market Report November 2011

2011 is drawing to a close. Christmas decorations are going up and if the weathermen are right we might even have snow on the ground by the time you read this! We'd like to take the early opportunity to wish all our readers a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

2011 Overview
2011 has been a very interesting year on many levels opening with a lot of overpriced property on the market, something we had cautioned against for a while. In late spring many asking prices were reduced and we encouraged new and existing vendors to be realistic. Once property was correctly priced the market began to move in earnest, though not in all parts of the country it seems as in June it was reported 70% of property marketed remained unsold 6 months later. This was not what we were seeing locally thankfully.

Throughout the summer, and indeed even into November, property has been selling at a consistently high rate. In the Autumn we saw a slight upward movement in asking prices, but to sell vendors needed to accept discounted offers, so throughout 2011 we've seen no real change in actual prices agreed. All we have seen is fluctuations in asking prices which, when set too high, have resulted in property sticking on the market. We have no reason to expect a real rise, or fall, in property prices in the next few months and would therefore consider the market to be holding steady.

Buyers
November has been unusually buoyant. The number of potential buyers has certainly decreased, but those looking for property are on the whole more committed and we have therefore seen no fall in the number of sensible offers made or sales agreed. We've noticed a significant rise in the number of buy-to-let enquiries and house hunters prepared to let in order to buy. Tenant numbers as well as rental returns are on the rise, whilst deposit account interest rates are not, and a relative shortage of property in the South all conspire to maintain house prices in our area.

Sellers market?
This month slightly fewer properties came to market leading to a local shortage of stock which has benefited current vendors and resulted in properties that had been overlooked attracting stronger interest and sales. For most of the year we've seen a buyers market, but currently there is a slight shift towards a sellers market. We expect this to last only into the early part of 2012. We would therefore recommend, if you are considering selling your home, you contact us as early as possible rather than delaying and joining the market later when we consider it likely to strengthen again in the buyers favour.

 October 2011 Report

Thinking of selling your home in the new year?
Now is the time to start planning. The old saying, the early bird catches the worm, is certainly true in the property market. January sees a huge surge in the number of prospective buyers searching for property. We want our vendors to be perfectly placed to take full advantage of that. Call us now for a valuation of your home and we'll get everything ready in time for you to benefit from that opportunity.

Property prices
Last month the north south divide in prices hit the headlines. London continues to ride an upward trend, with the North experiencing a slump. In Surrey, being on the fringes of London, we are somewhere in the middle and prices remain steady but properties in our area are looking increasingly attractive to londoners priced out of that market. We have observed an increase in interest from buyers across all property types, even late into the autumn, and expect that to continue.

Is a new home on your Christmas list?
Some of our current vendors are keen to move before the festive season and are prepared to strike a deal to realise their Christmas completion deadline. As you read this there is just enough time for that to still be viable, but time is short so please call us as soon as possible to register.

Changes at Jackson Noon!
We pride ourselves in offering a no-nonsense good old fashioned service coupled with local expertise with the right level of technology to compliment both, so we are proud when clients come back to us even when they have moved a further away. We have sold property in Hook, New Malden, Worcester Park and Tadworth as well as Chessington, West Ewell, Epsom and Stoneleigh, and are increasingly chosen to act for vendors from a wider geographical area.

Many improvements are in the pipeline over the next few months, not least an enlarged office. We needed to expand our team with staff who not only have a wealth of vital expertise but also share our commitment to smoothing the entire house selling journey, from valuation to completion. Maybe we are just very picky but finding the right people was key and not nearly as easy as it sounds! We are therefore delighted, and feel lucky, to be able to welcome Sandra and Tamsin to our team. Each has many years of experience in their respective fields so their appointments ensure we can continue to grow whilst maintaining the level of service our clients have come to expect. Though we won't be happy with that, Oh no, we are determined to get even better!

Market Report September 2011

Confusion
On the very same day this month the Guardian reported house prices had edged upwards in August by 0.3% yet The Halifax reported that they had fallen 1.2% demonstrating just how confusing figures can be. One of the main reasons for this, and an issue facing the statisticians, is that the type of property selling at any point in time varies.

For some time first-time buyers have found it difficult to get onto the property ladder and consequently the average house price has been apparently rising, not because it actually is necessarily but because the type of property being sold has been at the more expensive end of the market and hence when average prices are looked at they appear to be going up. Every 'average' tries to correct for this effect in a slightly different way giving the variation we see reported.

The Autumn season
Over the next few months we expect to see decreasing numbers of properties to come onto the market as is typical for the time of year. We can see a likelihood that the the supply and demand ratio will begin to gently shift towards a sellers market and in turn begin to fuel the increase in property prices predicted over the next 4-5 years. Current statistics are divided as to whether this has already started to occur or whether we are yet to see a small fall. Of course it will vary by location when it does start to happen, but our area is generally not far behind London in this respect.

Currently locally we are seeing no real change in house prices at the moment. Buyers are still looking for value for money but sensibly priced property continues to attract strong interest. So although we don't expect a sudden change in the market we can see the various factors that would fuel a change gathering together.

First time buyers
In late August and early September a number of factors began to ease the entry barriers for first time buyers. Firstly interest rates, currently at an all time low, are predicted to remain at their current level into 2013 and may even fall further with The Bank of England considering reducing the interest rates to 0.25% at their meeting in early September. This has led to the emergence of cheaper and cheaper mortgages.

In addition the lending market appears to have eased a little with more mortgage products coming to market, a slight relaxation of the lending criteria and a slight rise in the amount of mortgage money being approved. This is better than it has been but at the end of September the Financial Services Authority were called upon to use their newly gained powers to help ease mortgage lending restrictions in order to help stimulate the market. Encouragingly it is borrowers with smaller deposits that are increasing in numbers and although the best choice of mortgages are still to be found with in the 75% loan to value band (LTV), it is not since January 2009 that the market has seen so many deals requiring smaller deposits.

In early September a 100% mortgage came onto the market, specifically aimed at first time buyers, albeit with a hefty interest rate and a parental guarantee required. Whilst it may not seem that attractive at the moment you can be sure that other lenders will follow suit and seek to improve on that product to make themselves more attractive to potential mortgagees. Indeed by the end of September we were seeing the first of these emerge, a 90% mortgage at a considerably lower fixed term interest rate and we already have a sale agreed to a first time buyer who is taking advantage of one of these mortgage offers.

And so it is that, whereas the demand for 1 or 2 bedroom properties was significantly outstripped by the demand for 3 bedroom homes over the late spring and early summer, we have found growing numbers of buyers looking for smaller properties. That is not to say that 3 bedroom property is now unloved! The result will be that in time the whole of the property market will become more fluid with sellers of smaller homes more able to attract a buyer and thereafter move up the property ladder. This will create a new and different market.

Changing times
We remember, back in the days, happily waiting 2-3 days for our photographs to come back from the lab, carefully applying them to printed details then posting them to the potential buyers we had already phoned. Equally carefully we would create our weekly advert in the local paper, worrying about hitting press deadlines. Then just as we had sent off our copy a gem of a property would come onto the market and it would be a full 10 days before we could get it into the paper and a further 2-4 days before that paper was actually delivered through the letterbox of potential buyers.

In this digital age nobody either wants or needs to wait that long. Photos and details appear on our website almost instantaneously and the internet means that we are no longer limited to advertising locally. Potential buyers from all over the country can find our properties, and indeed they do! Its estimated that over 95% of people look online first when they begin house hunting. Well that's the average and our experience suggests that in the South of England its probably even higher.

So going back to the old days we would know that the market had 'woken up' when we walked into the office in the morning and the phone lines were already ringing off the hook. Today it's much 'quieter' but we can still tell you when the market began to exercise their fingers and search on-line. Tuesday 30^th August was the day that people put their holidays behind them and took to their keyboards to search for their future home. We saw a substantial increase in web traffic, emails and requests for digital details which has continued to increase over the month of September.

Market Report August 2011

August is typically a quiet month in the property market as both buyers and sellers turn their minds to summer holidays. We hope that wherever you went this year you enjoyed good weather and have returned refreshed. However against usual trends August 2011 has been almost as busy as June and July. Sales are still buoyant auguring well for the Autumn.

Locally
The market remains price sensitive with buyers seeking value for money. A realistically priced property will receive plenty of interest, sometimes selling in just a few days, but over priced properties continue to stick on the market or attract dramatically discounted offers. Indeed we are finding that buyers are prepared to renegotiate hard even when they have found their dream home!

In the meantime the biggest issue facing vendors, and buyers, is the continued caution of the mortgage lenders and their surveyors. We are increasingly finding that multiple issues arise in the period between a sale being agreed and exchange, all of which need to be resolved before a chain can come together and everybody can move. Often these are little issues which can easily be rectified but open the door for a buyer to reduce their offer. Keeping a close eye on the progress and 'niggles' in a chain, so as to nip things in the bud, is always important but never more so than at the moment. Most agents do not have a member of staff dedicated to this vital stage of the process, we do because we believe it's an essential part of our service.

What next?
Nationally London continues to forge ahead with prices rising particularly in the multi-million pound price range. Whilst this may seem a world away from our local market a London agent recently described what they called the 'champagne tower' effect. Large amounts of money pour into the London market which is currently seen as a safer international haven for money. In addition the buy-to-let market has seen growing activity as investors take advantage of increasing rental returns and the lowest mortgage rates seen in several decades. This money eventually pours down to our local market. It may take a few years to do that but, baring other global factors, it will ultimately result in local price stability and thereafter rises. The doom mongers of just a few months ago are slowly changing their tune and cautiously predicting a return to price rises in the next few years due to cheap finance, the 'Champagne Tower' effect and a national shortage of housing. This may sound exciting, but nobody so far is predicting that it will happen soon or that it will outstrip inflation. What it does tend to confirm is our own view that prices are relatively stable and may rise or fall in the immediate future, but an imminent boom or bust seems unlikely.

Market Report July 2011

Our round-up of the changes in the property market this month.

House prices
The first notable snippet is that the Rightmove index of asking prices moved downwards for the first time in 2011. We've been saying for a long time that asking prices were too high and encouraging our sellers to price realistically and aim for a quicker sale. Rightmove also reported a stunning 70% of properties newly marketed in 2011 are still unsold. That is partly due to a difficult market in the early part of the year when over optimistic asking prices were at their most prevalent.

Over the same period all indicators of actual selling prices, Halifax, Nationwide and Land registry indices, drifted downwards slightly before levelling out. Prices achieved are about 10-12% lower than the mini peak of early 2010, but remain substantially higher than the lows of 2008. Where exactly the market will go next may be down to factors we cannot control or predict, but for the moment the national indicators and our local experience would suggest that house prices are holding steady in our little corner of Surrey.

Market activity
Years ago we could almost set our watches by activity in the property market with it's very clearly defined seasons. This is no longer the case and hasn't been for at least a decade. Certainly there are still more active periods but they are no longer tied to spring and autumn. Back in the days July would have been at the end of the season yet in 2011 it's proved to be our busiest month with both new property coming to market and house hunters significantly increased. In 2001 we had a similar late start to the market which culminated in a record number of sales agreed in August and we wonder if 10 years later that pattern is to be repeated.

The increased activity has coincided with, and is quite probably partly driven by, expectation that interest rates will remain at their all time low for some time and the consequent availability of the cheapest mortgages we have seen for 23 years. Meanwhile prices in London have bucked the national trend and continue to rise meaning that more and more buyers are looking from that area to somewhere more affordable and, we believe, altogether more pleasant.

We have agreed sales throughout the year, but in the last 3 months the gathering pace of the market has been marked. In June we agreed twice as many sales as in May, July is on course to be almost double again and we see no evidence that the season is over quite yet. We have a member of staff dedicated to ensuring that sales progress smoothly to completion and right now he's very happy to be very busy!

Market report June 2011

The papers are full of statistics, reports, and opinions as to what the market is doing but none of them give a real insight into what's happening right here right now. So just what is happening locally?

Location is everything
Our local area has a number of geographic pluses that help to maintain house prices. Our proximity to London, where prices are rising against the national trend, means that growing numbers of buyers priced out of the market there are looking to areas such as ours. The A3 and M25, numerous train lines, good local schools and access to countryside all make our corner of Surrey very attractive to city dwellers looking for a better lifestyle and more affordable homes. We've noticed a large number of our buyers coming from the London area and as nearly all buyers look for their next home online we can see that this is a trend that will grow.

House prices
House prices may have replaced the weather as the most talked about subject in England! The end of June mini heatwave was lovely but does it mean we'll have the proper summer I'm sure we are at the very least owed.

We don't have a crystal ball to predict the weather or house prices but several things are clear. Asking prices across the country are rising slightly, whilst actual selling prices are drifting downwards. Asking prices are maintained at a high level for three reasons. Firstly it's hard to accept that our home is worth less now than it was just a couple of years ago. Secondly the economic climate means finances are stretched so getting less for your home than you had hoped is a bitter pill to swallow and thirdly some agents overvalue to gain instructions. Because of our almost unique location prices are drifting downwards more slowly than elsewhere but they are still following the national trend. This has resulted in a lot of property sticking on the market providing buyers with plentiful choice and creating a buyers market.

A home that is overpriced will rarely sell in such a market. Vendors may later reduce their asking price but when chasing a falling market their property often remains overpriced and becomes 'stale'. The end result is that either they fail to sell or end up having to accept an offer that is considerably below what they could have achieved if the property was priced correctly when it first came to market.

So one of the keys to selling your home in a buyers market is to get the price right at the outset. At Jackson Noon our focus is on selling your home at the best price possible, and currently that means pricing it correctly and helping you move quickly.