June 2017 - Waymark Property Report

We have just received the Land Registry information for prices paid for a residential property in June 2017 across the whole of the Vale of the White Horse and we have analysed the data year on year back to 2010, to provide you with an insight into what is happening with prices and volumes transacted in the region.

As a headline summary, whilst completion volumes are down on last year, the gap is not as wide as in previous months.  Prices have seen a minimal dip down.

Prices

For June 2017, the average price across all four property types (detached, semi-detached, terraced and flat/maisonettes) was £382,260 which is a decrease of £13,506 (3.53%) compared to June 2016. Since the start of the decade, there has been an increase of £83,307 (22.32%) over this seven-year period.  Comparing prices to the previous month, there has been a £12,182 (3.39%) drop in average prices.

Reviewing the average prices year on year for June by property type we see that Flat/Maisonettes had the biggest 12-month increase going from £204,139 to £239,221, a difference of £35,082 (14.67%).  Terraced properties had the largest decrease of 6.58% with Detached and Semi-Detached properties showing a 0.37% and 0.8% drop respectively.

Number of Sales

Previous property reports have shown a continuing decline in the total number of completions.  What we have seen this month is a reduction in this decline. In June there were 167 completions, which is down 54 (32.34%) on June 2016.  Compared to the two previous months property reports for May (56 completions) and April (56 completions) which were drops by 133.93% and 114.9% respectively.  In fact, with 167 completions for June 2017, this has been by far the best month of the year.

Comparing June’s completion by property type to the previous month, we see a similar split within the property types with detached and semi-detached properties making up nearly three-quarters of the market.

Waymark Comment

The number of sales, in a year on year comparison, is still showing a downward trend.  However, the percentage of completions compared to previous months this year has improved dramatically.  Where previous months have shown less than half of the previous years completions being achieved, for June we have a much healthier figure by achieving close to 70% of June 2016’s completions.

Whilst this is encouraging, year to date still remains disappointing from a volume of completions perspective.  This lack of property is helping to maintain prices but does impact choice.  Selling remains the easier part of the moving process with competition amongst buyers likely on each purchase although we saw the usual seasonal quiet period during August and into early September  The  need to remain realistic in terms of pricing still applies in what remains a slightly subdued market

However, Autumn is traditionally a much busier period and it is highly possible that the next few months will show a bounce back to a higher number of properties coming forward.