Mild January encourages more homeowners to the market.
I know it snowed this weekend, and last week was cold enough to wipe the grin from an Inuit’s face but generally January 2012 was pretty mild, I was even running in shorts! This seems to have had a pretty positive effect on people’s decision making as far as house selling is concerned – the mild weather that is not the shorts!!
We have seen a 58% rise in the level of houses coming onto the market in comparison to January 2011. Is this the start of something big? I am not sure but it certainly is a promising start. According to the Nationwide prices dropped by .2% in January, according to the Halifax they rose by .6% so it is difficult to glean from any “official “figures where the market is going.
Houses coming to the market are only the first stage, the second stage is buyers viewing and offering and it is too early to tell if that is going to happen. That said, you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket and the market won’t get going if people don’t put their houses on the market. Confidence is crucial to a decent spring market so some positive or at least not negative news in the general economy would go a long way to encouraging buyers to take the leap.
The property market is often the precursor for the rest of the economy - in 2007 the first effects of the credit crunch were felt in the property market- so it follows that we may see the first signs of a return to that, all important, confidence. Watch this space!!
Neal Mackenzie
6th February 2012
