Strongest spring housing market for home sellers in a decade
If you’re thinking about selling your home but have been waiting to see what will happen in the housing market, our latest insights reveal there is a record number of buyers enquiring about properties on our site this month. In fact, demand levels are 34% higher than this time last year when we were still experiencing a strong pre-lockdown market.
This surging level of demand, fuelled by people searching for more space and a change of lifestyle, is outstripping the number of homes for sale by the biggest margin at any time over the past ten years, making this the best sellers’ market of the decade – and perhaps one of the best ever Easter periods to sell.
Our resident property data expert Tim Bannister says: “Concerns of a cliff edge for the housing market at the end of March have dissipated, partly due to the tax deadline extensions in all of the UK bar Scotland. Strong buyer demand will be further boosted from April by the new Government guarantees enabling lenders to return to the widespread availability of 5% deposit mortgages.”
All of the numbers we use to track buyer activity on our site, which allow us to analyse around 95% of the UK property market, are ahead of this time last year. In February, we recorded seven million visits on average every day to Rightmove, an annual increase of 40%.
The average asking price of a property coming to market has risen by 2.7% in the past 12 months to £321,064 nationally.
Asking prices also increased for the second consecutive month, with a rise of 0.8% (+£2,484) recorded in March.
And despite fewer properties coming to market, the number of sales agreed for the first week of this month were still 12% higher than a year ago. Almost two out of three properties currently on estate agents’ books are currently sold subject to contract.
