Commenting on the latest Index results, Stephen Watson, Managing Director, Agency Express, said: “It appears that the attempted housing market recovery, which at its best was muted, has been exposed as being very fragile. Although the level of monthly house sales it as its lowest since January we are still seeing activity that is comfortably higher than twelve months ago and there have been pockets of growth around the country. The balancing out of the supply and demand of properties has contributed to the current picture as has the tighter restrictions on lending. With house prices reportedly dropping, we expect there to be a gradual pick-up of activity in October and November.”
There were two regions where there was an increase in the number of properties being sold. In Scotland they rose 7.6% and in the West Midlands there was a 5.2%. And, six cities experienced an uplift in sales in September – Glasgow (+12.7%), Birmingham (+10.3%), Newcastle (+4.9%), Norwich (+4.5%), Manchester (+3.2%), Oxford (+2.3%).
The South East had the smallest reduction in the number of properties being put on the market with a fall of just -2.4% followed by the North West at -6.5%. There were five cities that actually saw an upturn in the number of houses being put up ‘For Sale’ in September. Coventry led the way with a considerable increase of 20.2% followed by Southampton (+8.1%), Leicester (+5.4%), Bristol (+2.5%) and Manchester (+1.7%). |
