Q4 housing analysis confirms subdued 2018 property market reports TwentyCi

The latest TwentyCi Property
& Homemover Report for Q4 2018 - has confirmed an overall
market slowdown in 2018 in its latest analysis - the most comprehensive
real time review of the UK housing market.

While new instructions were up 4% year on year this didn’t convert to an
equal uplift in exchanges – down by 1.2% and with one in five house
sales falling through.

Despite a 2% increase in property exchanges year on year for under
35-year olds, indicative of a growth in first time buyers, there was a
decrease in overall exchanges across all other age groups, with a fall
of 7% in 36-45-year old exchangers and 6% fall in 66+ year old
exchangers.

Comments Colin Bradshaw, Chief Customer Officer, TwentyCi: “The
lacklustre volume of properties coming to market has the potential to
thwart demand. Q1 2019 and the outcome of the Brexit process will
determine the outturn for the next 12-months.

“An orderly Brexit and consumer confidence and pent up demand may be
released fuelling a property market upturn. The opposite, as the Bank of
England has warned, could cause a temporary but significant hiatus
within the UK property market. Whilst many indicators show that property
prices are remaining stable and not falling this is the undoubtedly the
direct impact of a lack of supply.”

This is also demonstrated by figures on final price achieved compared to
asking price narrowing in 2018 compared to 2017 – with the highest gap
only 3.73% in inner London and the lowest gap just 1.57% in the west
Midlands.

2018 also saw a steady increase in the percentage of rental properties
available and Q4 data reveals that 40% of the housing stock is now
rental, rising to 50% in cities such as Newcastle Upon Tyne and
Manchester.

Affordability – the London crisis

While prices have fallen in London, affordability for London residents
living and working in the city is at crisis levels. TwentyCi has looked
at various cities in the UK and assessed the affordability of these
cities for the poorest 25% of people (by income) and the wealthiest 25%
of people to pay a mortgage or rent.

Overall, the data suggests that the North-South divide is very much
still in existence, despite higher salaries in the south. For example,
the 25% of highest earners in London will be paying between 40-60% of
their take home pay on their mortgage to buy a property of equal
standing with a 40% deposit. While the 25% of lowest earners in London
will not be able to afford to buy a property of equal standing as it
would mean spending between 70 and 131% of their take home pay on their
mortgage. While for the lowest earners the cost of renting a property of
equal standing would be between 57 to 90% of their take home pay.

However, figures show there are many places in the midlands and north of
England where the 25% of lowest earners can afford to rent or buy. In
Nottingham for example, to rent a property of equal standing involves
35% of take-home pay on rent, or to buy might involve 37% of take-home
pay on a mortgage.

Says Colin Bradshaw, Chief Customer Officer, TwentyCi: “With
consumer confidence low and Brexit providing an overarching economic
shadow, the performance of the London property market continues to
decline. Notwithstanding Brexit, affordability within the capital will
provide an ongoing brake to revitalisation in the short to mid-term with
the ripples being felt across the whole of the UK economy.”

Online agents

The latest report for Q4 also revealed that the market share of online
estate agents for 2018 has stabilised at 7.2% of all exchanges (down
from a high of 7.6% in Q2), but additional analysis shows that online
agents are struggling to penetrate south of the Watford Gap and on
properties valued at over £200k.

Adds Colin Bradshaw, Chief Customer Officer, TwentyCi: "The
unexpected demise of eMoov and the recent results of Purplebricks
suggests the building of an online proposition continues to be
challenged by the ability to win customers and build brand awareness
especially in southern regions.

“Similar to the dot.com boom of the early 21st century, without a
reduction in customer acquisition costs the current model remains
significantly flawed. It remains a paradox of this market that online
agents are doing better in the north where properties are generally
cheaper compared to the south, however based on their fixed fee
structures one might have reasonably expected this to have been the
other way around.”

Unusual property features to aid well-being, New Years resolutions

In addition to its latest market analysis, TwentyCi property data also
reveals insight into some of the most unusual home features including
properties that could aid buyers’ well-being or New Years resolutions
this year with 8 properties on the market offering meditation rooms, 53
homes with an organic garden and 30 homes with a private swimming pool.

ENDS

**All data is based on Q4 2018 vs Q4 2017 year-on-year comparison
unless otherwise stated.

Editor’s notes – The TwentyCi national Property & Homemover Report

• Customer insights company, TwentyCi’s Property & Homemover report is a
  comprehensive review of the UK property market, created from the most
  robust property change sources available – providing a real time
  review of the UK market and covering 96.6% of all property moves (both
  sales and rentals).
• This quarterly ‘state of the nation’ report provides unique insight
  into the people behind the numbers, creating a picture of the
  demographic, regional and socio-economic factors impacting the housing
  market including:

√ Factual data (not modelled or sentiment-based)

√ Full market coverage

√ Demographic overlay

√ Property sales data

√ Property rental data

√ Real-time data

About TwentyCi

TwentyCi is a specialist customer insights company with exclusive access
to more than 29 billion qualified property change sources across the
whole property sector. It works with leading brands to create targeted
marketing programmes across many different sectors including property,
furniture, DIY, travel, automotive, telecoms and utilities.

Unlike other housing reports, which cover only a sub-section of the
market or are based on sentiment, TwentyCi’s report is based on factual
data covering 99.6% of both the property sales and rental markets, in
addition to tracking sales momentum http://www.twentyci.co.uk

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190117005377/en/