The UK property market activity for the week ending on the 5th of May 2024, which is Week 18, remained robust, mirroring the previous week’s high performance in both gross and net residential property sales, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the middle of 2022.
Verona Frankish of Yopa highlights the key trends of this week:
1. The pricing for properties with agreed sales in April averaged £344 per square foot, a steady climb from the prices earlier in the year.
2. New property listings were just shy of reaching the peak numbers recorded the week before, which were the highest since September 2020.
3. Year-to-date (YTD) total gross sales have outpaced the corresponding period in 2023 by 10.8% and have surpassed the average for 2017-2019 by 8.2%.
4. Net sales from the last week exceeded the same week in 2023 by over 21% and the 2024 weekly average by almost 14%, making the past two weeks the best for net home sales since May 2022.
5. Sales fall-through rates remain consistent, affecting slightly more than one in every five sales.
Deeper Analysis:
- The UK market introduced 41,392 new listings, pushing the YTD number to 634,167. This is a 13.1% increase over the historical eight-year YTD average and 10.7% more than the YTD in 2023.
- The average listing price now stands at £463,936.
- This week’s average asking price for new listings is 24.9% greater than that of properties that reached a sale agreement, which exceeds the long-term average spread of 16-17%. Reasons include overall property overvaluation, higher initial pricing for properties meant for downsizing, and the lower likelihood of properties selling in London & the Southeast.
- There were 23,738 price reductions last week, contrasted with the 8-year Week 18 average of 15,069, indicating that 1 in every 6.24 properties is seeing a price drop monthly, a significant increase from the long-term monthly average of 1 in 9.9.
- The average asking price for those properties whose prices have been lowered is currently £415,627.
- A total of 27,591 properties were sold subject to contract (STC) last week.
- The cumulative gross sales YTD have reached 432,520, well over the figures recorded for 2017/2018/2019 as well as those of 2023.
- Properties sold STC are maintaining an average asking price in the mid £300,000s, specifically £371,560.
- Sale fall-throughs increased slightly from the previous week to 6,172, but the overall sales pipelines are fuller compared to the 2024 YTD weekly average of 5,189 and the spike of 7,590 weekly fall-throughs following the Truss Budget in Q4 of 2022.
- The fall-through rate inched up to 22.4% this week, still below the eight-year average of 24.8%, but a notable decrease from the over 40% experienced in Q4 2022.
- Net Sales remained steady at 21,419, closely aligning with last week’s numbers and above the 2024 YTD weekly average of 18,840.
- The total accumulative net sales YTD are at 339,113, which is 5.4% higher than the average for 2017/2018/2019 and 12.5% above the 2023 YTD net sales.
