Page 13 - Redbrik: Property and marketing Autumn/Winter 2019

PERCENTAGE OF ASKING PRICE ACHIEVED IN SHEFFIELD ABOVE NATIONAL AVERAGE
Sellers across England and Wales achieve an average 95.94 per cent of their asking price according
to research from estate agency comparison website GetAgent.
Top of the league table comes Sheffield postcode S7 where sellers’ agents typically achieve 104.09 per cent of
the average asking price of £295,862. Dartford properties in DA1 are second
with 102.67 per cent of the average asking price of £300,448, while homes in another Sheffield postcode – S11 – are third achieving 102.19 per cent of the typical asking price, which is £330,596.
FIRST TIME BUYER PURCHASING POWER ON THE UP
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Stamp Duty relief and mortgage availability are boosting first time buyer purchasing power.
First time buyers are set to be the largest buying group this year according to research from Zoopla.
The study found that first time buyers are using their wider ‘purchasing power’ from longer mortgage terms and Stamp Duty relief to buy larger homes.
The portal said first time buyers accounted for 36 per cent of all UK housing sales and half of all mortgages for home purchase in 2018.
The most popular type of home first time buyers enquired about last year was three-bedroom houses, according to Zoopla rather than the traditional flats.
In 2018 first time buyers were purchasing property with average prices around 8-15 per cent lower than the regional average for all housing. This contrasts with pre-2007, when they were buying homes 20 per cent to 25 per cent below the regional average.
Richard Donnell, Research and Insight
Director at Zoopla, said: “First time buyers have been the driving force behind the housing sales market in recent years. Lower mortgage rates and improving mortgage availability have supported the growth in numbers across the country.
“Despite increased barriers from high
house prices in southern England and mortgage regulations, the appetite to buy their first home remains strong.
“First time buyers will be the largest buyer group this year and there is no evidence that the long runninwg appetite for home ownership will diminish any time soon.”
HOME MOVER MORTGAGE APPROVALS HIT NINE-MONTH HIGH
The number of mortgage approvals for home movers has hit the highest level for nine months.
UK Finance data shows that the number of home mover mortgage approvals in July increased by 1.4 per cent annually to 32,710 – the highest figure since November 2018.
First-time buyer approvals were up 5.8 per cent annually to 32,640. The value of both first time buyer and home
mover mortgages was also at the highest level so far in 2019, at £5.7bn and £7.5bn respectively.
The number of buy-to-let mortgage approvals increased by 5.5 per cent annually to 5,800.
Mike Scott, Chief Property Analyst at Yopa, said: “These figures are still difficult to reconcile with HMRC’s numbers
for the total number of home sales completing in the month, which was
reported as a 12.4 per cent decrease for July, compared with July 2018.
“The HMRC figure is provisional, and
the numbers for earlier months have been revised upwards as more data has come in, so we expect that the July figure will also increase.
“We therefore expect that the overall number of homes sold in 2019 will be much the same as in the preceding years, despite the uncertainty.”
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