Wed 21 Aug 2019

What's Happening in the West Midlands Housing Market?

July’s House Price Index has been released by RightMove, and it doesn’t tell as doom and gloom story about the national housing market as many would have you believe!  Most regions of the country are still seeing annual pricing growth, even if there is a slight decrease on month on month or year on year figures. 

Taking into account a greater level of uncertainty in the Capital, we do see the first monthly fall in 2019 – 0.2%.  However, whilst the West Midlands sees a monthly decrease of 0.3%, year on year growth is up by 1.2%. 

We are certainly seeing less property coming to market, but this is matched by a longer time taken to find buyers for these properties.  However, the West Midlands is still leading the field with the average time to sell a property at 55 days. 

The most resilient sector to the current political uncertainty seems to be the middle and lower sectors.  In fact, we know that mortgage approvals here continue to be buoyant which definitely gives a solid boost of confidence to people who were perhaps unsure of engaging in the busier Spring market.

What do we Think?

On the whole, the market remains positive as the fundamentals of house purchases such as mortgage approvals, high employment rates and low interest rates are supporting potential buyers.

Says Andrew Oulsnam, Director.  He adds;

With an average property sale price in the West Midlands of £230k, we are confident that the type of property stock our 11 sales offices are currently marketing will have significant appeal to the middle market sector that seems to simply be getting on with their house purchases, and ignoring the elongated mixed messages that are coming from the current Brexit discussions.