Cliff
Hall from Arlington & Hall reports
some better news on the housing front.
Every
year the influential Mayfair Group, of which my company is a hand-picked and
exclusive member, organises a round of regional summit meetings across the
country with my fellow
estate agent members from over 100 firms from the top of Scotland to the tip of
Cornwall and just about everywhere in between. This forum is an opportunity to
discuss, analyse and understand the property market from local, regional and
national perspectives. For several years these summits were quite sombre
affairs at times as estate agents across the length and breadth of the UK
reported difficult trading, low sales figures and a general inertia in the
market.
But this year was
different. At each forum there was a feeling of marked optimism, of increased
sales, of more enquiries and of greater interest. Certainly the issues and
problems of difficult mortgages and hard-to-acquire deposits are still
prevalent. But the overwhelming feeling was one of increased confidence in the
property market, in jobs, and in the economy.
Property is
always the first in to a recession and is inevitably the first out - but always
with an upward trend. We know this only too well from the last three recessions
we have been through since the early seventies. Indeed since the mid-fifties
the average house price rise per parliament – six Labour and six Conservative –
has been about 58%. That is 54.8% under Labour and 61.2% under Conservative.
So, in house price terms, there is not much between the two major political
parties. But if Mr Cameron does not want his legacy to be one of overall house
price decline then he will need to stay in office through a time of
post-recession growth as did two Conservative prime ministers before him -
Thatcher and Heath. Averaged over their tenancies at No 10 house prices increased
by more than 155%!
But at least our
current prime minister may now take heart from some recovery. From our reports
across the UK it certainly sounds as if we have begun the long haul out of the
greatest economic peacetime crisis in living memory. Nowadays the media is full
of news about the market although one isn’t sure they always get it right. But
estate agents are the very first to understand what is really happening in the
housing market – their businesses and livelihoods depend on it. The Mayfair
Group regional summits were revealing. Boom times are not exactly back – except
perhaps in Central London. But one suspects that a period of slow but sustained
incremental growth in activity, demand and value will carry us through the next
few years. This will provide us with a relatively stable, non-volatile market
which will help give an impetus to the rest of the economy.
