Date Posted: 21/05/18
SUMMER FINALLY ARRIVES!
The recent arrival of sunshine and blue skies has put a spring in the step of many potential buyers! Whilst it might have been late coming, more and more people are using the opportunity of improved weather to tidy up their gardens and give their home a spring clean in preparation for putting it on the market.
Putterills’ valuers are reporting a marked increase in the number of homes they are seeing with a view to placing up for sale over the coming few weeks. In addition, Rightmove continues to report record numbers of new buyer registrations, which is a clear sign that whilst it may have been a bit delayed, the market is now back on track for its usually busy early summer period.
Hertfordshire continues to enjoy record full employment and strong demand from potential buyers. Mortgage money remains at its most affordable levels for many years, overall reports are that the economy is performing well and there is growing confidence in the housing market for 2018. Demand for new homes remains as high as ever and we are delighted to have a number of exciting new developments coming soon.
Rather alarmingly, a recent survey has shown that house sale fall-through rates in the first quarter of 2018 have reached the highest level in the last decade at over 38%. Putterills believe that part of the reason for this could be the rapid rise in online and hybrid estate agents. Many of these agents do not offer a sales progression service, nor do they have the infrastructure required for the large amount of time that this part of the transaction takes. As most online agents charge a fee for simply listing your home, they have little incentive to see that an actual transaction goes through to completion.
Whilst certain circumstances such as illness and redundancy mean that some fall-throughs are unavoidable, Putterills believe that being a full service agent, who do their upmost to verify buyers positions and make regular due diligence checks on all parts of the chain, means that our own fall-through rate is less than 20%.
Help us to help you! Many of you will be aware of the changing legislation (GDPR - General Data Protection Regulations) that comes in to effect on May 25th this year. This means that we will need your specific consent to continue providing you with any of our marketing information, i.e. details of properties for sale as well as other information relating to the property market.
As always, whether you are buying, selling or have land that you need advice on, speak to your local Trusted Property Experts.
