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January saw a flurry of house hunters

Christina Hoghton
Written By:
Christina Hoghton
Posted:
Updated:
27/02/2018

Demand for housing grew significantly in January, as supply also rose

The number of house hunters looking for new homes rose by more than a third (37%) in January, according to NAEA Propertymark.

In December, estate agents registered 268 buyers per branch, but this shot up to 367 in January – the highest figure since September 2017.

Surge in supply

In line with this, the supply of available properties and the number of sales agreed also increased.

January saw an influx of sellers marketing their properties – the supply of available properties increased to 36 per branch on average, from 33 in December.

Mark Hayward, chief executive of NAEA Propertymark said: “As we usually see in January, buyers and sellers have re-entered the market after the festive slow-down and triggered an uplift in the number of sales agreed.

“While this is good news for the market generally, the increased competition seems to have affected first-time buyers, who generally have less bargaining power when it comes to bidding for properties.”