Theresa May’s decision to call a snap General Election backfired spectacularly, and coupled with Brexit fears, the housing market is suffering from a crisis of confidence. With price growth stalling in many areas, the predicted post-Election spike in new property listings was little more than a trickle, as homeowners chose to stick rather than sell.
Of the 100 towns and cities that HouseSimple.com analysed, 81% of areas saw property supply fall in June compared to May. Dundee and Barnsley registered the biggest drop offs in property supply, down 48.1% and 39.3% last month. Of the few areas that saw a rise in new listings in June, Lichfield and Hartlepool registered substantial gains of 20.6% and 18.7% respectively.
London
The capital bucked the trend, with property supply up 5.3% across the boroughs. Sutton stood out with new property listings in June up by more than half (54.1%) compared to May. The following table shows the London boroughs which saw the biggest rise in property supply in June:
Alex Gosling, CEO of online estate agents HouseSimple.com, comments: “The supply drought continues. The property market was hoping for a downpour of new stock in June, but the Conservatives crawling over the line failed to deliver the injection of confidence the market needed, and put paid to any chance of a late Spring bounce. Price growth has stalled, and sellers, it appears, are choosing to stay put, rather than accept marketing their properties at a lower price then they might have done a few months ago.
Sellers maybe need a dose of reality, because price growth slowing should not be the only reason to hold-off moving. The housing market overheated and it was inevitably going to cool at some point. If sellers are waiting for prices to go up again, that could be a long wait. If anything, homeowners should see this as a good climate to sell as long as they price correctly. If prices have dropped where they live, they are likely to have dropped, possibly by even more, in the area they’re planning to buy.”
