Property Natter - Incoming! It’s hard work to figure out the housing market

Lies, damned lies, and statistics this week. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel as though I’m being bombarded with information - Data Missiles fired into my inbox from silos known or unknown. It gives a whole new meaning to ‘DM me’.

In general, though, the information is designed to be helpful – even if, at times, it may appear contradictory.

This week, RICS released its January 2023 UK Residential Survey, which showed new buyer demand, sales, fresh listings, and prices all on a downward trend. It made pretty sobering reading, although the outlook for the next 12 months contained some glimmers of confidence that the market will pick up as the year progresses.

Contrast this with our own data. As most of you know, the online valuation tool, ValPal, is part of the Angels Media family, and our website now hosts a brilliant live data online valuation page. We think it’s the first in the country to offer a running commentary on how the market is thinking. It’s still in beta right now, and we’re looking for as much feedback as we can get.

It covers lettings as well as sales – just click the lettings tab, and it will take you straight there:

Please take just a moment to visit the page here and then email me at nat.daniels@angelsmedia.co.uk and let me know what you think and if there’s anything else you’d like to see.    

As I write, the latest sales data tells me that there have been 144,024 online valuation requests through the ValPal Network since 1st December 2022.   

Big numbers   

This means that more than 144,000 householders on our network are thinking about selling their homes. They may not have decided to do it yet, but they’re thinking about it enough to get an instant valuation on their current property.   

But that’s just numbers, right? Well, yes. But these are big numbers. The total estimated sales value of these online enquiries is £53,282,584,949. And counting. Average sale price? £369,956.   

What is this saying about the state of the market? To me, it says that things may be tough at the moment. They may be tough for a while. But there is business out there to be fought for and won! People may not be acting like sellers yet, but they’re certainly weighing up their options. The property market took a wallop in Q4 of 2022, but things have settled down since then, and even though buyers may be a little coy about their intentions, many of them will be ready to woo!   

Land Registry data shows that almost 20% of ValPal leads were completed in the last 24 months. All it takes from the agents is a little conscientious nurturing. What’s that? Don’t have time for all that stuff and nonsense?  

Get our lead nurturing tool, MovePal– it does the hard yards for you automatically. Judicious use of technology makes all kinds of sense when the going gets tough, and agents must do everything they can to lighten their load.   

Not very good   

Of course, a tighter market sorts the wheat from the chaff. And one of the criticisms aimed at agents during a high-powered round-table event discussing prospects for 2023 was that, as a breed, they’re slow to pick up on the benefits offered by technology. Sarah Edmondson, chief exec of Agents Together, fired that particular salvo. But perhaps the most critical comment came from Peter Rollings, non-exec director and former boss of Foxtons, who suggested the ‘vast majority’ of agents weren’t good at selling properties.   

That sounds like a fundamental problem to me. It’s undoubtedly true that, in recent years, agents haven’t had to work too hard to gather the low-hanging fruit because the market was booming.    

But life is not ‘Easy Like a Sunday Morning’ anymore. It’s more of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.   

Finally, let’s all welcome the new housing minister, Rachel Maclean. She is the 15th esteemed Member of Parliament to hold the post since the Tories came to power in 2010 and the sixth in the last 12 months.   

Housing Crisis? What Housing Crisis?   

Enough said.   

Until next time…