Rightmove reveals big winners from post-lockdown surge in demand

Rightmove has given a regional breakdown in where  buyer demand is strongest in the past two weeks.

It’s perhaps no surprise that the north west of England, Yorkshire and the Humberside are the locations with the biggest search demand. 

Hereford in the West Midlands tops the list with Wigan, Rochdale, Wilmslow and Scarborough making up the rest of the top five.

The coastal town Hastings the only place from the south of England to make the top 10 list.

In terms of property types and sale v asking prices, Rightmove says it’s typical family homes of three or four bedrooms that are achieving closest to asking price, with buyers agreeing to pay 98 per cent on average in England.

But other property types perform well too - it’s 97.5 per cent of the asking price being achieved for first-time buyer properties and 97.4 per cent for larger top of the ladder homes.

A separate study by Rightmove of the prices of over 7,000 newly agreed sales - provided to the portal large corporate agencies - shows that agents selling typical ‘second stepper’ homes (with three or four bedrooms homes but excluding four bedroom detached properties) are achieving closest to the last advertised asking price on Rightmove when agreeing a sale.

Rightmove housing analyst and commercial director Miles Shipside says: “Our new analysis of the prices that buyers are agreeing to pay shows that properties in the typical family home or second stepper sector are achieving closest to their asking prices. 

“If you exclude London and some more expensive areas in the south then these types of home are typically in the £250,000 to £500,000 price band. These are currently appealing because they’re likely to benefit from more space and a private garden, attributes that home-movers tell us are now even more important than before lockdown.

“There are still 175,000 sellers missing that would usually have come to market when it was closed, so sales agreed numbers will take a while to recover to normal levels, and much hinges on the deals that lenders are able to offer buyers in the current market.”