As Director of Operations for UK domestic services, I keep up to date with the latest property market trends to ensure my team are able to provide the very best service to relocating employees moving around the UK. So what are the market trends in the UK that we’re currently seeing?
The Good
In the sales market, Halifax and Nationwide Building Society value the average UK property between £159,883 and £164,134, and we haven’t seen dramatic deviations from these figures for quite a while. Indeed the financial institutions report marginal annual declines of between 0.5% (Halifax) and 0.9% (Nationwide). As historically low property prices continue, for those who can afford the high mortgage loan deposits, this would appear to be a good time to purchase property.
The Bad
In the rental market, available properties are still outnumbered by prospective tenants, and this imbalance continues to push prices up. However, we are beginning to see a slight dip in the number of tenants, which may indicate a lack of demand or it may be that people are choosing to stay in their current homes because they can’t afford to move.
The Economy
With the continuing Eurozone uncertainty impacting the global economy, there are concerns about how much the UK could be affected this year. Encouragingly, however, experts such as Nationwide (03/05) state that they expect the UK economy to gradually gather pace in the second half of 2012, which may well have a positive impact on the property market.
Top Tip
Echoing previous Cartus property market bloggers, a realistic asking price remains key to securing a sale. Relocating employees should set a competitive asking price from the outset, not six weeks or six months after putting the property on the market. To generate interest and achieve a sale, properties should be priced correctly from the very start of the selling process and sellers should continually review their marketing strategy.
Please click the following links for all of our latest communications on relocation in the current property market, including May/June’s issue of UK Market Watch.
Email this contributor at trudy.andrews@cartus.com.
