It appears that the spectre of an election is subduing activity in the housing market, with many people putting moving plans on hold as they await the outcome of the election and the impact it could have on their household finances.
Although April’s house sales nationally remained at broadly the same level as those in March, some regions saw a reasonable uplift in activity. Sales in the South West were up 10.0%, in East Anglia they rose 6.6%, in the South East there was an increase of 5.6% and in Central England sales were up 5.0%. Encouragingly, the South East and West Midlands saw house sales at their highest levels for two years.
However, the West Midlands saw the biggest fall with house sales down 15.9%, followed by London down 11.6%, Scotland down 9.3% and Yorkshire down 7.2%.
Commenting on the latest Index results, Stephen Watson, Managing Director, Agency Express, said: “It appears that the General Election has effectively dampened the level of activity in the housing market that we could have expected as people are choosing to wait for the outcome of the election before making decisions on whether or not to sell or buy. Although the national picture is one of stagnation, there are pockets of activity in several of the central and southern regions of the UK that suggest that we could see a hike in sales after the election, as the number of For Sale boards that went up in April was the highest seen for around two years.”
In the South West the number of properties being put up ‘For Sale’ rose by 15.0% which was the highest level seen since June 2008. The East Midlands was next with a 9.2% increase (highest level since July 2008) followed by Central England up 5.6% and the West Midlands up 5.4% (highest level since July 2008). |
