Brexit impact on UK property market "marginal not a crisis"

New research shows there has been little significant change in the residential property market since the vote to leave the EU.

Estate agents, Jackson-Stops & Staff analysed the data on properties for sale on 22 June, the day before the Brexit vote, and then again on 8 August.

Using data representing 90% of the entire UK property market, it found of the 866,179 properties for sale nationally, 352,301 or 40.7% were under agreed offer.

Forty-seven days later, the same analysis revealed a 1.7% rise in the total number of properties on the market, to 872,953 with the number under offer falling by 4.3% to 335,176.

Overall, the number of properties under offer represents 38.4% of all properties on the market, a drop of just 2.3%.

Nick Leeming, chairman at Jackson-Stops & Staff, said: “Whilst the market has weakened slightly following the Brexit result, we usually see a slowdown in activity over the holiday months and these figures suggest we are yet to see a property crisis.

“Although agreed offers have marginally decreased, many thousands of buyers are still making offers to buy homes in the present economic environment. As a result, many sellers are feeling confident, demonstrated by the fact that asking prices have in fact seen a moderate increase.”

In fact, the average UK property asking price has risen slightly, by £1,040, from £240,470 on July 25, 2016, to £241,510 on August, 8.

Looking only at properties under agreed offer or sold subject to contract, reveals an average price of £232,699, 3% lower than the average of all properties three weeks ago.

But analysing just the average asking price of all properties on the market, but not under offer or sold, the average asking price is £247,026, 3% higher than the average for all properties two weeks ago. This suggests sellers with agreed offers have been more realistic in pricing their properties than those without an agreed offer in place.

The research concludes that though this shows the market may have weakened marginally, “reports of a crisis are unfounded.”

“While sellers may have to drop their asking price a little to get an agreed offer, there is no evidence of sharp house price decline nationally. Indeed, sellers accepting an offer 3% to 5% below asking price is normal in a healthy housing market”, said Leeming.

“These figures show that the housing market continues to remain remarkably resilient. There is life after Brexit – the housing market is driven by need and these needs continue to motivate thousands of buyers.”