Figures from estate agents and housebuilders have confirmed that they are seeing pent-up demand in starting and completing the hunt for a new home.
Nationwide agent Carter Jonas has compared statistics over the first month since the easing of lockdown restrictions on estate agents as of Wednesday 13 May. It shows that across the property sales and lettings market, there has been a significant increase of consumer activity from online searching to site visits and agreeing sales.
The numbers demonstrate changing levels of activity as of the seven days after Wednesday 13 May compared to the seven days before Thursday 11 June:
- New properties for sale, up 204%
- Agreed sales, up of 258%
- New buyers, up 251%
- New tenants, up 127%
- New tenancies, up 175%
- Internet enquiries, up 205%
- Sales and lettings viewings, up 435%
- Sales offers, up 359%
David Ruddock, head of residential sales operations at Carter Jonas, said: “The moment that restrictions were lifted for the property market last month, it came as no surprise that activity levels experienced a bounce back. A lot of market movement in recent weeks has been a product of pent-up demand, which has been building since the middle of last year – and long before the pandemic began – as people anticipated stability in Brexit plans to bring back market confidence.
“However, dissatisfaction with people’s accommodation and living situations has only intensified in lockdown, with many very motivated to move in search of more private outdoor space, room for a home office or those growing families that have been bursting at the seams with too many people in the house all day every day. It has also highlighted problems in people’s relationships, with those wanting to go their separate ways very keen to move quickly now that they can.”
Housebuilders have also experienced plenty of house-hunting interest and decisive action from buyers. Kebbell announced it sold seven homes in the first week post-lockdown. Four were three- and four-bedroom properties at its development at Cornelian Fields in Scarborough, in addition to a three-bedroom house at The Courtyard in Droxford, and two four-bedroom houses at Heatherfields in Bordon.
Harvest View from Kebbell
Andrea Fawell, sales and marketing director of Kebbell, said: “We saw intense interest in our developments online during lockdown and offered virtual tours during that time, but we are delighted at the subsequent incredibly fast sale of our homes since lockdown was lifted. We hope it is a telling sign regarding the buoyancy of the property market.
“We believe that buyers looking for a new home may well now have different priorities post lockdown, including increased demand for gardens and space for working from home.”
Galliard Homes reported 35 new reservation deals at its developments around London in the first two weeks since the ease of lockdown. A significant amount of these deals came from first-time buyers who had spent time during their lockdown searching for properties online, including Galliard’s virtual tours.
David Galman, sales director at Galliard Homes said: “When it became obvious that lockdown was on the way, we immediately invested in innovative technology for virtual tours, and launched these across our entire London portfolio. We have seen a significant number of purchases from first-time buyers during, and now post-lockdown. Many buyers have used our virtual tours to learn more about the lifestyle on offer at each scheme. Since the lockdown has eased, we have seen the use of these virtual tours help buyers to move forward.”
Multi-award-winning developer London Square saw a surge of sales interest since reopening its sales suites at its schemes, with an increase of over 400 per cent in potential buyers visiting show homes or taking real-time tours and virtual viewings.
Sarah Turpin, a regional sales manager for London Square, has seen a spike in interest from buyers from London looking for homes with more space and in a leafy setting. She said: “We have also seen an increase since the lockdown in first-time buyers looking to move from apartments in Canary Wharf to houses with outside space and good schools in the Surrey area. These buyers are in rented accommodation and they are looking to take advantage of the Help to Buy scheme and move out of London. The lockdown has made them re-evaluate their lifestyles and they want a larger home with their own garden or outside space and to be close to the countryside.”
London Square Tadworth Gardens
MJ Gleeson, housebuilder in the East Midlands and North of England, reported: “Virtual show home tours have been launched on the company’s website and the Gleeson Key Worker Priority Programme launched in May 2020 is generating strong interest. Reservation levels, which had, in the past months, fallen to 25% of pre-Covid levels, have increased significantly in the last two weeks with reservations at 70% of pre-Covid levels.”
The financial side of homebuying has also, understandably, seen a major step up in activity. James Tucker, CEO at mortgage technology provider, Twenty7Tec, said: “In the month since, the lifting of lockdown restrictions for estate agents, the total mortgage search volumes using our systems has doubled from 479,000 searches to 955,000 searches. We’ve also seen the volumes of first-time buyers’ searches quadruple since that announcement. First-time buyers accounted for 39.4% of all purchase searches in the past month – up from a lockdown low of 31.82%.”
David Ruddock concluded: “Unless a second wave were to come or lockdown restrictions were to be reinstated, we are hopeful that market momentum will only increase albeit at a steadier pace as the weeks go on. The real influence on this is the ability to conduct physical viewings, demonstrated by the fact that we have had 435% more viewings in this last week compared to one month ago. This has seen us scale up our operations and measures to ensure such positive numbers of viewings can all be carried out safely as per government guidelines – as these in person interactions with properties have and will remain paramount to clients when making their final decision.”