The Housing Market Post Lockdown

At this moment in time, with the country in lockdown, furlough becoming a word we have all become accustomed with and social distancing becoming the new norm one of the questions we are being asked daily is what will the housing market be like post lockdown?

The honest answer is, we don’t know!  The current unprecedented situation has never been experienced before in the world, let alone the housing market making it incredibly hard to predict how buyers, sellers, tenants and landlords will react.

There is no doubt that lockdown has heavily influenced the market with Zoopla reporting that the number of newly agreed sales has fallen by 70 per cent since the coronavirus restrictions were put in place on 23 March (with the number of new enquiries falling by 60 per cent).

Then the RICS housing market survey showed that both new buyer enquiries and new properties listed had fallen significantly in the second half of March.  However, unlike any previous downturn in the housing market, they both fell at the same time. This means that, while both supply and demand are heavily subdued, there currently isn’t any evidence of the kind of disparity between them which has been the stimulant for significant price drops in previous downturns.

However as bleak as this sounds, common sense suggests this is to be expected.  A market where Agents cannot provide physical valuations, viewings or appointments is one where the transaction levels will drop significantly.

The only true indicator of potentially what the market will be like, seems to be the pent up demand and enquiry level experienced through the lockdown period.  As an illustration, through one portal since the 23rd March to the 8th May we have received 432 sales and lettings enquiries which is incredible.

Perhaps through this period which has been filled with confusion, it has also provided clarity on what is important.  Spending time at home or with your family has illustrated what space is required and what used to be essential might now seem like a distant memory.

As always, we are here to provide advice on finding your dream home, selling through a pandemic or even if you just wanted to talk through the current situation and wanted to have a chat.

Wishing you all the best through this period.