This week’s UK Property Market Stats Show features Steph Walker from TAUK. But before we start, this was a Bank Holiday weekend, so all the metrics/numbers are suppressed to the rest of August.
Headlines:
+ Listings (New properties coming on to the market) – 29.2k UK listings this week (week 35), 16.1% lower than last week (week 34). Yet, 7.6% higher 2024 YTD than 2017/18/19 YTD average & 9.2% higher than Week 35 of 2023.
+ Total Gross Sales – 21.5k UK homes sold stc this week (Week 35), which is 15.1% lower than last week. Yet, its 26% higher than the same week (week 35) in 2023. Also, 6.9% higher than 2017/18/19 YTD levels & 12.5% higher than 2023 YTD levels.
+ Net Sales – 16.1k this week, 32% higher than the same week in 2023 & still 15.1% higher YTD in 2024 compared to YTD 2023.
+ Percentage homes exchanging vs homes unsold – YTD 2024, 52.91% of UK homes that left UK Estate Agents books exchanged contracts, the remaining 47.09% were withdrawn off the market, unsold. In essence you a flip of the coin chance of actually selling, homeowners moving and the estate agent getting paid. Over valuing is causing a lot of this! Any thoughts on this? – please put them in the comments.
+ UK House Prices – Figures for the whole of August, the Sale Agreed £/sq.ft remained at £338/sq.ft, a slight drop from July at £341/sq.ft. House Prices are 1.22% lower than 4 months ago.
+ Sale fall-throughs – Sale Fall Thrus (as a % of Gross sales Agreed) dropped to 25.1% this week. The 7 year Long Term Average is 24.2% and it was 40%+ in the two months following the Truss Budget in the Autumn of 2022.
Chris’s In-Depth Analysis (Week 35) :
New Properties to Market: The UK saw 29,176 new listings, which is still around 10% higher than expected (see the listing graphs). This year’s YTD listings stand at 1,228,377; 9.3% higher than the historical 8 year YTD average of 1,146,007, 7.2% higher than YTD 2017/18/19 and 7.6% higher YTD 2023. Just FYI – Weekly 2024 average : 35,096.
Average Listing Price: £412,204 (2024 weekly average – £437,438)
Average Asking Price of this week’s Listings vs Average Asking Price of the Properties that Sale Agreed this week: 18.1%. This is still great to see again that it’s not in the 20%’s (which it was in the Spring). The long-term 8 year average is between 16% and 17%. (Weekly 2024 average 21.5%)
Price Reductions: This week, 17,626 properties saw price reductions. Yet there are higher stock levels. Stock end of month July 2024 (latest data) levels are at 710k . This means that ONLY 1 in 9.6 properties each month are being reduced. Is that enough? I don’t think so!
Average Asking Price for Reduced Properties this week: £399,362. (2024 weekly average – £397,718)
Gross Sales: 21,529 properties were sold stc last week. 2024 weekly average : 24,665 Gross Sales)
Accumulative Gross Sales YTD: The total YTD stands at 863,262, exceeding the average YTD Gross sales figure of 807,287 from 2017/18/19 and 767,204 in the same week 34 in 2023.
Sale Through rate: (new monthly stat) : UK Estate Agents sold 15.13% of their Resi sales stock in August ’24. The 7 year long term average is 17.9% per month – yet dont forget that was only in mid/late 20%’s in the crazy years of 20/21/22). A decent bellwether and good comparison is the 2017/18/19 average at 15.57% per month.
Average Asking Price of Sold STC Properties: Still staying in the £350/370k’s range (like has been for 2 years) at £349,402.
Sale Fall Throughs: Fall thrus this week dropped to 5,469 (as normally the case with Bank Holiday weeks). YTD weekly average is 5,653.
Sale Fall Through % Rate: 25.4% for week 35. (Comparison – 24.7% for the last 3 months, whilst the long term 8 years average is 24.2% & it was 40%+ in Q4 2022 in the Truss budget!) Graph 17
Sale Fall Throughs in the Month as a % of the total Sales Pipeline (NEW STAT) – Good news – this dropped from 5.66% in July to 5.39% in August. (8 year average 5.32%) – Conclusion – even though we are getting higher fall through rates (units wise)because the sales pipeline is higher, it just shows looking at the graph, that everything is okay (look at the yellow long-term trend line)
Net Sales (Gross sales this week less fall thrus this week) – 16,060
Accumulative Net Sales YTD: The total stands at 665,411, still 4.6% higher than the 17/18/19 YTD Net sales average (636,052) and 15.1% higher than the YTD figure for 2023 for Net Sales (578,112)
UK Resi monthly Sales Agreed as a % of monthly listings (NEW GRAPH) : 72.5% for August. For comparison – 2024 YTD 70.6% and 2023 was 69.1% whilst the 5 year average 79.2%
UK Resi monthly Sales Agreed as a % of monthly listings : 72.5% for August. For comparison – 2024 YTD 70.6% and 2023 was 69.1% whilst the 5 year average 79.2%
Resi Sales Stock on the Market : 710k at end of August (down from 715k at end of July). For comparison, Aug ’23 – 646k, Aug ’22 – 478k, Aug ’21 – 421k, Aug ’20 – 674k, Aug ’19 – 652k
Resi Sales Sold STC Pipeline (Units) : 504k at end of August. For comparison, Aug ’23 – 416k, Aug ’22 – 529k, Aug ’21 – 562k, Aug ’20 – 405k, Aug ’19 – 381k
UK House Prices – Noticing UK House Prices being achieved in the last few months have started to drift down slightly. Very minimal – this will be reflected in the Land Registry in Jan & Feb 25 figures
Local Focus this week was Telford.