Welcome to our August Homemover Pulse where we take the pulse of the UK property market and give a snapshot of current homemover activity.
UK property market update - August
Whilst the market is still buoyant and positive in comparison with the wider economy, August’s figures have shown a levelling off in terms of sales agreed and new instructions. The latest house price index from Halifax shows property prices have fallen slightly for the first time since June 2021.
Property supply has continued to increase in every UK region except inner London. Yet, Savills report that the intensity of demand is beginning to wane, and this is backed up by the slight changes we’ve seen across sales agreed and completions.
As supply slowly increases, and economic conditions worsen, it’s no wonder there’s a hint of a change in the energy of the property market as we head towards Autumn.
The current state of the owner-occupied property market
Currently, there are 227,949 residential properties available for sale and 340,236 properties with sales agreed across the country. There have also been 291,214 completions in the last three months. In the chart below, we have broken down these key stages of the home buying journey - new instructions, sale agreed and completions - by region of the UK.
There's no sign of the South East slowing down and it remains the most active region with high levels in new instructions, sales agreed and completions.
Total new instructions have further increased this month, whilst sales agreed and completions have held fairly steady.
Current new instructions
Our new instructions data covers all residential properties in the UK which are currently available for sale. There are currently 227,949 properties listed for sale across the UK.
Total new instructions are still rising slowly, increasing by 5.84% compared with last month’s total.
As in recent months, the South East continues to have the highest number of houses currently available for sale, followed by Inner London and the East of England.
The only UK region to see a decrease in new instructions this month is Inner London. Despite this, it is still the only UK region with more new instructions than completions, allowing buyers more choice in this area.
Wales and the South West saw the largest increases with over 10% more new instructions than last month. The East Midlands has also had an increase in fresh housing stock of over 9% when compared with last month.
Current properties with sales agreed
Our sales agreed data covers all properties in the UK which are currently at the start of the conveyancing journey and are sold subject to contract. Sale agreed figures can be seen as an indicator of present demand, showing where people are currently in the process of moving to. Currently, there are 340,236 properties across the UK with sales agreed.
Sales agreed increased just 0.75% compared with July’s figures, although regionally, things were very mixed.
The highest demand was still in the South East, followed by the North West and East of England. With the exception of the South East, the other popular regions have comparatively lower house prices than the national average along with plenty to offer in terms of space and quality of life.
Scotland, Wales and the West Midlands saw the biggest increases in sales agreed in comparison with last month.
Notable areas with decreased sales agreed figures in comparison with last month were the East of England, North East, Outer London, Inner London and the East Midlands.
Completions in the last three months
Our completions data covers all residential properties in the UK which have undergone contract completion in the last three months. This data set, therefore, covers all homes which have been newly purchased and moved into. In the three months to August, there have been 291,214 contract completions across the UK.
In August, completions have remained fairly steady with an overall 0.14% increase in the 3 months to August compared with the 3 months to July across the UK. Scotland again bucked the trend with a 6.36% increase, and other notable increases were also observed in Northern Ireland and the North East.
The North West saw the largest decrease in completions at -3.85% in the 3 months to August compared with the 3 months to July.
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