PHEW, WHAT A SCORCHER! No, not the ‘summer’, silly, the local property market!  

When we sat down to write this, we considered discussing The Crunch, Prudence Brown, Doom-monger Darling and the supposed End of Western Civilisation As We Know It. Then we thought, ‘hang on a minute, we’re estate agents – not socio-economic commentators or political journalists!'

Of course we can comment on the local economy and local housing market – and as local estate agents and small business owners, we have a responsility to do so. But we felt wider comment was as misplaced, unqualified, and just as much hearsay or regurgitated guess-work as the acres of broadsheet speculation. Educated people, like our clients and SW readers, can get that stuff anywhere.

What these people want to hear from us, as estate agents, is “how much is my home currently worth?” and “can you get a good price for me now?” (Answers: “lots more than you probably thought” and “yes, we can”).

We think that since hitting the bottom in winter 2008, the local market has rebounded. It has gone up 15+% in the last seven to eight months, though Primelocation.com recently quoted a prime London residential property annual price increase of 3.56%. This is area specific. We’re not sure that message has been relayed to south-west London property owners. This part of London has bounced back – big time.

Take an example. In January 2008, we put a local five-bedroom house on a good road off Clapham Common Westside under offer at £685,000. For one reason or another, it fell through. However, it was recently re-agreed at £885,000. Entirely the same house, entirely different market. This spring and summer we had 16 sealed-bid scenarios and, just this last month, four incidences of gazumping; an unpleasant experience for most concerned, to be sure, but a sign of a very competitive market.  Agent speaks Rampton Baseley’s Patrick Rampton and Joel Baseley.
 
This quite unexpected and tearaway price rise over the spring and summer has been fuelled by a constant supply and demand imbalance. It seems we are experiencing our old problem: too few houses and too many good buyers. We think people sensed the bottom of the market. They’d mostly got out of the market and into rented property as prices tumbled over 2008. They were families, they needed a home, were sick of renting, and had frankly few other places to put their money.

So we had limited stock and loads of good buyers with no chain. Prices started to go up, and that’s been the story ever since. Thankfully, we think the market has calmed and stabilised as we go into winter. It was all getting a touch too frothy and reminiscent of 2007.

However, we still have many, many good buyers and very few houses to sell them. Wily and unscrupulous agents are trying to value higher again in order to get instructed, but we have found the buyers are saying ‘enough is enough’. They’ll pay X, but not X+1. We think this demand/supply imbalance is strong enough to carry these prices through to Christmas – and beyond, if the bonus stories we’re hearing from local City workers are true.

Judging by the valuations we’re doing, we feel that there will be more property available in the New Year – most people won’t sell right now because there’s nothing to buy. So our advice is get it on, and exploit the current sellers’ market. Get yourself a chain-free, cash-rich buyer with a flexible time frame, and then hit the New Year Sales! ●