Ignore the negative market headlines because the UK’s property market is booming – if you know where to look.
Lomond says it wants to “counterpunch” a gathering storm of negative headlines focused on the UK property sector by pointing out that its letting portfolio has increased 8%, while sales have topped £267m in Q2 2023.
In its latest quarterly insight report, the company urges vendors, buyers, tenants and landlords to hold firm amid tough housing market conditions.
With interest rates the highest they have been this century, so-called ‘doomsayers’ in some parts of the national media have been forecasting the potential for a crash in prices. But that is nonsense, according an estate agency clearly intent in talking up the market.
Lomond’s CEO Ed Phillips said its latest research was a window into the truth behind the headlines and, when viewed in context, the market was proving to be more resilient than the media is claiming.
Lomond says its data-driven research involves more than 60 branches in a network that stretches from Aberdeen to Brighton, with a managed lettings portfolio of more than 40,000.
Drawing on data from market-tracking insights gathered through a new partnership with independent analysts Dataloft, Lomond, the fastest growing estate agency in the UK thanks to a series of merges and acquisitions, which partly explains the growth in sales and letting recorded, is confident its research of underlying trends paints a far more positive picture.
Phillips said: “There’s no denying these are tough times, but sensationalist headlines don’t help anyone.
“We did see a fall in asking prices in May this year with a 4.8% decline since August 2022, but we need to remember last summer saw some frenzied activity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If you dig a little deeper, then you will find prices in May this year were still 13.5% higher than in January 2021.
“Not only that, but all the metrics we monitor were higher in early summer this year than they were in the previous three months.
“Our branches across the UK are reporting more supply coming to the market in terms of instructions and valuations, both in terms of quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.
“Sales exchanges in Q2 2023 are also currently outperforming those in the first three months of this year, and compare well with 2022 while mortgage applications also remain high, suggesting promising activity levels in Q3.”
Other data unearthed in the latest quarterly analysis offers a positive spin on the current state of the market.
