Now we are able to be out again and starting to meet with friends in the pub and at home. As ever in the UK, housing market is a hot topic of conversation. Everyone has an opinion.
My opinion sought after in social situations – seen to be at the cutting edge of what’s happening. Currently market very ‘hot’. Everything coming on is selling very quickly, not much new stock coming to the market. More buyers than sellers. The stamp duty holiday has served to inflate house prices. With no stamp duty to pay, vendors and agents have been more confident of achieving a higher guide price and the lack of stock is further inflating.
Question I am asked whenever I see friends; ‘what do you think is going to happen to the housing market?’
Me, ‘it will stay good for most of the rest of this year. It will steady off next year, more stock will start to come on and people who haven’t been able to afford to move will begin to do so. There will be more confidence as the whole country is vaccinated and so people who have been cautious will want to put their plans into place. BUT at the same time, as people can go on holiday again then their homes will cease to be as important as they have been for the last 18 months, there is some respite possible. AND people will gradually move back to their offices at least part time. There is a big social element to going to the office which many people have missed, added to which teams suffer in some cases if they are never physically together and as a result many employers are keen to create at least some office working days.’
I strongly believe that a gravitation back to communal workplaces will begin to happen. It will mean that those who have moved to commuter towns will win out and prices here will stay high. For those who have moved to more remote areas of the country there will be a gradual exodus back to commuter areas and even to the cities. Those living in the country for the first time will struggle with the loss of the romantic, rural idyll once the winter sets in. Doing an hour’s round trip twice a day to take the kids to school will wear thin. The kids were doing home school when the plan to move was executed and the reality of the journey time to a good school didn’t sink in. The endless mud will inevitably lessen the charm of the country kitchen as the lovely new lockdown puppy grows and brings in mud, sticks and small dead creatures from the garden outside several times a day.
Socialising with friends in the winter is hard. Every occasion demands a car journey and so the negotiation about whose turn it is to drive is a weekly event. The countryside at night in the winter is dark, seriously dark. For anyone not confident of driving narrow country lanes with no street lights this will become a problem. People will start to move out from their recently acquired, cold, damp, expensive-to-run country home to the villages and towns with better connectivity and more community life.
In my opinion these are the areas that will retain high values. Less commutable options and out-in-the-sticks homes will return to pre-lockdown values and levels of activity.
Get in touch with us today 01332 987740
