Summer can be a quiet time for buyers, sellers, and agents, so it’s also a good time to take stock and catch up with what’s going on.
Asking prices are staying stable
Figures from property website RightMove suggest that the asking prices of properties coming onto market are stable, even though there’s traditionally a slowdown in summer. The asking price of a newly-marketed property went up by an average of 0.1% from June to July – an average of £300.
The Help to Buy scheme has helped nearly a quarter of a million first-timers
Help to Buy has been around for four years, in different forms, and it’s helped 250,000 buyers make that vital first move.
The help to Buy ISA, which launched in December 2015, has also been used by nearly a million would-be buyers to save up a deposit.
The mortgage market still has some great rates
Mortgage rates have been really low for ages and this is still going strong (as it were). The average interest rate for a fixed two-year deal fell by 0.04% between June and July.
This is partly due to competition between lenders, and all indications from the Bank of England point to the base rate staying at its record low of 0.25% for at least the rest of the year.
There may be some stirrings of uncertainty
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) released a report which points towards the political uncertainty starting to affect the housing market. Around half (44%) of the surveyors who contributed to the report claimed that the current climate was having an unsettling influence on the market, followed up by Brexit and swingeing Stamp Duty rates in London.
There’s no London housing bubble
Financial expert John Hawksworth of Price Waterhouse Coopers says he doesn’t believe there’s a London housing bubble or an impending pop. Taking key indicators (low mortgage rates, too few homes, and an increasing population) into account, he thinks the London property market will stay afloat, if stalled somewhat, for the foreseeable. Phew…
