Latest News - February 2012

End of stamp duty holiday encourages first-time buyers

RICS UK Housing Market Survey January 2012

House sales edged up slightly during January as an increased number of first-time buyers looked to beat the stamp duty holiday, which expires in March.

Twelve per cent more surveyors across the UK reported rises rather than falls in newly agreed sales since the beginning of the year. From 24 March, first-time buyers will no longer be exempt from stamp duty on properties under £250,000 and some surveyors note this has produced an increase in activity at the lower end of the market.

In light of this, surveyors predicted transaction levels to pick up over the coming three months. This represents the strongest reading since May 2010.

In spite of this relative optimism, prices across much of the country continued to drop, albeit moderately, with more surveyors reporting price falls rather than rises. Across the UK, London once again saw the strongest reading in terms of prices, while the West Midlands and Wales saw the biggest falls.

Supply remained relatively steady during January, with more surveyors reporting increases rather than decreases in new homes coming onto the market. While slightly down on December's figure this is the fourth consecutive positive reading for new instructions across the country.

Alongside this, overall new buyer demand dipped slightly in the first month of the year, demonstrating that the recent lift in activity has been driven by one-off factors, with more respondents reporting falls rather than rises in new buyer enquiries. Despite a relative upturn in interest from some first-time buyers prior to the end of the stamp duty holiday, surveyors report that lack of affordable mortgage finance continues to hold back the market.

Looking ahead, while a cautious optimism surrounds future transaction levels, the same cannot be said for future prices. More surveyors expect prices to fall over the next three months.

The new lettings staff

With our lettings office now open we have two new members of staff who have both recently joined Philip Martin in our expanding lettings department.

Darrin was born in Cornwall and he currently lives in Camborne although he has lived out of the County for the past 15 years working in Plymouth, Bath and Spain. Darrin has always worked in property and he joined the firm in October last year. In his spare time Darrin likes to go to music concerts and boasts that he has seen most of the big names, but for a great night out Darrin has said that "you can not beat the Quo" which he has now seen 22 times. His other hobbies include watching sport and playing golf although he admits that he doesn't play golf very well.

Kirsty recently moved to Cornwall from the Midlands to be near to the beach and hopes to enjoy a more laid back lifestyle! Kirsty worked in her families letting agency for 5 years prior to the recent move which provided her with the opportunity to gain experience in all aspects of lettings. In her spare time Kirsty enjoys an active lifestyle where her main interests are skiing and kickboxing. Kirsty also loves to travel.

To meet Darrin and Kirsty please drop into the office at 6 Cathedral Lane to say hello.

Philip Martin Lettings Office - OPEN

2011 was an excellent year for residential letting and we have seen our business grow by 25% for the second year running.

We have opened a new specialist lettings office in Truro City centre enabling us to offer the best possible service to our clients.

With a growing proportion of the population considering renting as their primary choice there is no better time to consider letting your property. We are the only specialist letting agent in Truro regulated by the RICS and run by a chartered surveyor with many years of management and legal experience.

We aim to be Truro's top letting agent and already look after approximately 340 properties with this number growing on a daily basis and if you are considering letting your property in 2012 then please do not hesitate to contact us.

The UK housing market forecast - 2012

The past year has been a mixed one for the residential sector. Mortgage finance has remained in short supply and this has been reflected in a disappointing level of transaction volumes.

Looking forward, the key challenge for the housing market over the next twelve months will, perhaps inevitably, be the state of the economy.

The reality of the situation has clearly been recognised with the revised growth forecasts that were recently published by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and endorsed by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement. But as George Osborne has himself acknowledged, there are huge uncertainties contained in this analysis not least relating to how the euro area crisis resolves itself. These developments will, critically, have a bearing both on the labour market as well as the capacity of the banking sector to provide funding for those households looking to take a first step on the property ladder.

The RICS Sales Expectations series remains in positive territory as has been the case for the past couple of years although it does have a tendency to err on the optimistic side. We expect total sales as measured on the basis of HMRC numbers to climb back to the 880,000 area in 2012 which is around the same level of activity as that recorded in 2010. However to put this improvement in some context, total sales in 2006 reached 1.67 million.

Turning to the price outlook, the central scenario in this forecast is for the typical price on a residential property (as measured by the index now being compiled by the Office for National Statistics) to edge a little lower over the course of 2012. Taking account both of the outputs from our housing market models and the results of our surveys we envisage that the headline price index may be around 3% lower at the end of the year compared with the fourth quarter of 2011.