Monday, May 24, 2021

‘Trying to buy in this market is painful’

UK property transactions in March 2021 were at their highest level since records began in 2005, according to the HMRC.

There were more than 180,000 UK property sales in March, more than double the number in the same month last year.

Official data shows average UK house prices rose more than 8% in a year.

Kirstie Allsopp, presenter of Channel 4’s Location, Location, Location, says she is “concerned” by the decisions people are making.

She says: “People don’t know if they’re going to have to go back to work in an office.

“People are making big decisions about moving, assuming they won’t have the commute anymore, assuming they’re going to have the time to spend on a big garden… I worry because they’re making big financial decisions based on these lifestyle factors.”

BBC Radio 5 Live’s Naga Munchetty spoke to people who have had recent experience of the housing market.

Kirsty Kirby is a first-time buyer in South Yorkshire who has been planning to move house since 2018.

The 37-year-old pharmaceutical sales representative says prices in 2018 were a little out of her reach, so she decided to “save aggressively” throughout 2019 and was viewing two to three houses a week before the first lockdown. Now she says even getting a viewing for a property is a challenge.

“I ring for many properties,” she says, “I’m like a hawk on Rightmove, I must refresh it several times an hour, just to see what’s on.”

Kirsty says most homes she enquires about already have multiple viewing bookings within minutes of appearing online and estate agents warn her the house will be going to ‘best and final’ offers.

“Best and final is a system where buyers put in one offer for the seller to choose from, in order to avoid a bidding war between prospective home-owners.

Kirsty says, in her experience, anytime a property goes to best and final “it goes way above the asking price because people get crazy”.

“Technically I can wait to buy my house, but that’s painful because I’ve been planning this for a long time,” she says.

The post ‘Trying to buy in this market is painful’ appeared first on The Mortgage Bureau.

https://www.themortgagebureau.co.uk/first-time-buyer/trying-to-buy-in-this-market-is-painful/

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