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How the weather affects the UK property market

Posted 7 December 2016 by Ben Salisbury

New research shows that British property buyers like to search for a new home in normal weather but sellers prefer the sunnier months to sell their home

New research looks at how the weather affects when people buy and sell houses and has found that first-time buyers are more likely to look for a home when the weather is fairly normal.

Conveyancing services firm, My Home Move looked at the two national obsessions, property and weather and found that Brits are put off searching for a new home by extremes of weather.

New home buyers prefer to search for a new property when the weather is not too hot and not too cold, but just right.

However, home sellers are most encouraged to get the ‘for sale’ sign up in the summer months, July and August, when the average estate agent has 50+ properties on their books.

My Home Move looked at more than 1,000 Met Office weather data reports and Housing Market Reports complied by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) about buyer and seller activity and the number of properties available for sale per estate agency branch, across the England and Wales between 2013 and 2016 and found that first-time buyers avoid temperature extremes when house hunting and prefer to search when temperatures are between 7-10 °C and 15-21 °C.

However, sellers prefer the summer months. During 2014 and 2015 there was an average high of 51 and 55 homes for sale per branch when temperatures were at their peak for the year, according to the National Association of Estate Agent’s Housing Market Report.

In August 2016, there were 41 properties for sale per branch, the second highest number ever recorded, compared to an annual low of 33 properties listed in January when temperatures fell to 8°C. December was the least popular month for sales agreed at an average of just six per branch.

Doug Crawford, CEO of My Home Move said: “As a nation we are famed for talking about the weather and often teased by our European and American friends for it. But on a serious note it would seem that the weather can have an impact on the behaviour of Britain’s house hunters and sellers, and paying attention to the outside temperature could help the industry predict when to market to first-time buyers, or look to attract new sellers as the weather hots up.”

However, both buyers and sellers appear not to be very concerned by the rain

Doug said, “However, it would also appear from the research that us Brits are so used to the rain that it has no obvious, negative effect on the property market and the number of house hunters, even during the wettest months of the year, still average at over 330 per branch*.

“So even when it’s raining cats and dogs we are still happy to put our homes on the market, view properties and even make an offer.”

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