In the current property market, success belongs to the sellers who are realistic and open to negotiation, according to one of the UK's leading estate agents.
This insight comes in the wake of an unexpected announcement that average UK house prices fell by 0.4% in April, reducing the annual rate of house price growth to 0.6% from 1.6% in the previous month.
Jeremy Leaf, a former residential faculty chair at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, isn't surprised by the slight dip in property prices. "The increase in listings is resulting in more choice for buyers and some heavy negotiations on the ground, which means only realistic sellers are proving successful," he explains.
Despite the small increase in mortgage payments and the recent dip in property prices, Leaf believes that the market's underlying demand remains robust. This resilience, he says, is due to the stronger spring market and the confidence that affordability will improve now that inflation seems to be more under control.
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Estate agents reacting to the house price drop have unanimously blamed high interest rates for halting the recovery that emerged earlier in the year. Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, comments: "The house price growth seen in the first two months of this year is going into reverse as higher mortgage rates take their toll on demand."
Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of Garrington Home Finders, adds that the oversupply of homes for sale in many areas is pushing prices down. He says, "The flurry of activity seen at the start of the year opened the floodgates for many would-be movers who had been holding off on putting their home on the market. The current surge in supply, coupled with wobbling demand from buyers whose affordability is being stretched to the limit by stubbornly high mortgage interest rates, is pushing prices down in many parts of the country.”
Amy Reynolds, head of sales at Richmond estate agency Antony Roberts, echoes these sentiments, saying: “Creeping mortgage rates are not helping the market and are holding back the lower end. The Bank of Mum and Dad remains essential for the majority of first-time buyers in London and the southeast where property prices are higher."
In conclusion, the current market demands flexibility from sellers. Those willing to negotiate prices and adapt to the changing landscape are the ones most likely to secure successful sales.
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