The Property Market June 2020

There are a lot of people asking me what is going to happen in the property market and to predict house prices. Whilst I like doing this for fun, no one knows.

However, we can look at the immediate history and calculate relatively well the next six months. The property market has been frozen and therefore property prices have been frozen.

The Land Registry publish actual house prices on data from six months ago but it is not current. Rightmove product stats on current demand today and this filters through to sales.

Attached is a graph to show the light grey area which is the normal range of the property market and its clear to see the last two weeks, a bounce back to a buoyant property market.

The chart shows total detail views on Rightmove in a given area (in this case Bournemouth) compared to the same period in 2019. A “detail view” is a measure of how many people click through to view a properties full details.

Home movers tend to research properties for a few weeks before they begin to book viewings, offers and sales. So tracking the uplift in detail views is an early indication of demand. This data is a combination of detail views across properties for sale and to let.

The market is split. Group one, are happy with conducting viewings (on the basis social distancing is retained, cleaning hands, no touching on viewings and we are wearing gloves, etc.) Group two, who absolutely will not leave the house, who have underlining healthy conditions, anxious or frightened. This is why we have introduced virtual 360 tour viewings. A 360 degree walk through the property and having now let multiple properties using this software, its working well. It also reduces the physical contact and saves wasted time on physical viewings.

In summary, the current snapshot of the property today, shows the bounce back is well under way.