The latest Asking Price Index from Home.co.uk shows a freeze in the housing market during March 2020.
They have said “Estate agent offices are closed until further notice. Hence new listings have fallen off a cliff. Moreover, price movements in such times are essentially meaningless and forecasts of falling prices are premature to say the least.
“As in any market, price information is only representative when a certain threshold of transactions has been surpassed.”
The headlines of the report include:
- Supply of new sales instructions plummets across the UK (down 23% year-on-year).
- The largest regional fall in the number of new instructions year-on-year is in Scotland, followed by London and the South West.
- Home prices slip 0.6% month-on-month as fewer vendors list their properties.
- The average Time on Market for sales properties in England and Wales has begun to rise when normally it falls as springtime confidence surges.
- The North West and Wales remain atop the regional growth table, both with year-on-year price hikes of 4.3%.
- The total sales stock across England and Wales is now shrinking even more quickly; down by 13.0% year-on-year.
- For the time being, East of England remains the UK’s worst-performing region with the average asking price just 0.7% lower than twelve months ago.
- The supply of newly available rental property across the UK plummets 23% year-on-year.
- Competition for the dwindling number of available properties to let has driven up the mix-adjusted average rent in Greater London by 9.0% in just twelve months.
Read the full report here.