March 2024 Update

We have confidence in the housing market in the local area.

There has been a cooling of property valuations within the last 18 months. As a result, we are not seeing as many sales agreed over the asking price as we would have previously done in the early parts of 2023 and the latter stages of 2022.

We have also seen a delay in would-be purchases from last year.

Speaking of potential purchases, there certainly appears to be a more settled feeling regarding interest rates and mortgage products currently available for buyers.

The consensus seems that Wrighty will only come down and there will not be further increases in interest rates or mortgage rate products.

We are also seeing this filter through to our analytics. Smart Homes are experiencing a 54% increase in the value of instructions to the business.

Cancellations are also down a whopping 42% compared to the same period last year, so buyers are not experiencing product changes and rate rises during the transaction process.

Completed sales have increased by 92% for the first quarter of the year and we’ve also seen a 48% increase in applications through our in-house mortgage advisor.

It’s important not to get carried away with these figures and become overconfident. This is likely due to Vendors being realistic in their asking price and price achieved along with purchases being realistic around their affordability. The correlation of the two is producing a better result for all concerned.