The latest house price index from Rightmove, which analyses market activity and the average asking prices that UK sellers are listing their property on the website for, has revealed a record level of home-hunter activity, which has fuelled rises in asking prices in most regions.
According to Rightmove, this active start to 2018 proves that housing demand continues to be resilient with prices of property coming to market being up by an average of 0.8% (+£2,414), indicating cautious optimism among new sellers
All regions have seen price rises except for a marginal fall of just £131 in the South West, and January was the busiest month ever recorded on Rightmove, with home-hunter visits hitting over 141 million.
The data also shows that there are more sellers too, with the number of properties coming to market up by modest 2% on the previous year. Year-on-year change in the number of sales agreed has recovered from -5.5% in Q4 2017 to just -1.6% in January.
Patrick McCutcheon, head of residential sales at Dacre, Son & Hartley which operates 21 offices across West and North Yorkshire says: “Over the last few weeks we have seen an increasing flow of new stock coming to the market, but unsurprisingly, the greatest growth in activity has been in buyer registrations.
“Future sellers want and need an idea of what’s available before taking the big step of launching their homes for sale, and the level of these current registrations gives us confidence of a buoyant spring market – supported by what remain competitive interest rates.”
According to Rightmove, the average asking price in the Yorkshire & Humberside area in February is £181,356, and the region has seen a 0.8% monthly and 3.1% annual increase in asking prices. On average the data shows that it takes 77 days to sell a property in this region.
To read the full report visit http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/house-price-index/
