Q4 sees influx of prime properties entering the market for sale

The UK property market saw a huge 56.8% increase of high-end properties that went up for sale in the last few months of 2014.

Related topics:  Property
Warren Lewis
28th January 2015
Kensington Door

The data, collated from Experian's Property Index, highlighted that the total number of homes that entered the market for sale during October, November and December increased by 27.1% – from 147,852 homes in Q4 2013 to 187,905 homes in Q4 2014.

This was led by a significant rise in the number of homes worth over £500k appearing on the market for sale in Q4 2014 compared to Q4 2013. This was the highest percentage increase across all the price bands – less than £100k, £100k-£250k, £250k- £500k and more than £500k.

As you would expect, London saw a substantial boost in the number of properties for sale over £500k showing a staggering 82.5% rise from the Q4 2013 total of 5,708 to the Q4 2014 total of 10,414. Unsurprisingly, this is also by far the highest total of properties over £500k in the country, with the South East total of 3,963 some way off in second.

Jonathan Westley, Managing Director of Consumer Information Services at Experian UK & Ireland, comments: “With more homes being bought under the government’s ‘help to buy’ scheme and increasing numbers of properties appearing for sale, this could mean more people hoping to get onto the property ladder this year.  Once they’ve found the house they love, they’ll want to move quickly and that means having a mortgage in principle already agreed.  However, over a third of people are probably unable to afford a property in their own area.

Lenders are going to great lengths to understand what mortgage applicants can afford, so that the final decision to lend is fair and responsible, thanks to the Mortgage Market Review, but this has unfortunately lengthened the process.  One way forward is for lenders to ‘pre-qualify’ their mortgage applicants online, giving homebuyers a fast, but accurate and fair decision on whether they will secure a mortgage and for how much, without impacting their credit score.  This means a better experience for homebuyers who can confidently put in a timely offer on the house they want to buy, but still enables lenders to protect their customers from taking on too much debt.”

Pre-qualification is a tool that leverages a detailed understanding of credit data and lenders’ credit policies giving consumers a decision about a product and a value they are likely to get accepted for before making a formal application.

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