So what's going to happen to the Tamworth housing market in 2023?
If you read everything in the press it's all doom and gloom, transactions are going to plummet, house prices are going to slump and no one is ever going to be able to get a mortgage and the rates are astronomical.
If we look back over the past few years, the housing market was there doing its own thing, then comes along a global pandemic, and we all panic. Little did we know, that on the back of COVID 19 and coming out of lockdown in July 2020, house prices would adopt a hockey stick effect. What we also saw was that once a property was listed for sale, generally regardless of the price, we would be organising viewings, fielding calls, and dealing with a multitude of offers. I remember 1 property with 18 viewings and 17 offers all above asking price! Best of all, the Bank of England base rate was at its lowest rate ever at 0.1% (https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.asp), mortgages were pretty much available, and the rates were phenomenal. I personally fixed a 5 year deal with Santander in September 2021 at 0.99%!
So here we are, everything is going great and the we get to September 2022, and our new then Prime Minister Liz Truss and her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and their mini budget to stamp their authority, and it did, it had a near instant impact on the housing market. Mortgage companies didn’t know what was going on, how to plan and what to lend so they hiked the interest rates to almost protect themselves. Inflation was going crazy, and the Bank of England raised interest rates 3 times, to where we are today at 3.5%. In contrast to my great mortgage rate I mentioned earlier, In November 2022 I re-mortgaged a buy to let property at 5.89%, and in hindsight, I probably reacted a little too quickly.
So what’s been the fall out of all of the those changes that will effect the Tamworth housing market in 2023?
We are now in the first week in January, and what we’ve noticed from the back end of 2021 is that there are fewer viewings on properties. If you check out Rightmove, of the 58 properties added or reduced by at least 2% in the last 7 days, 28 of them are reduced. Buyers are not being rushed now as there’s not as many viewings, we’ve seen some buyers now offering lower than asking prices, but we are still seeing estate agencies putting high prices on properties to gain instructions. People love to hear that their £350,000 property is worth £400,000.
To give you an idea of how much property prices have grown in the last 4 years.
These are average house prices across B77, B78 and B79.
In 2019 the average price was £214,674 over 1619 transactions
In 2020 the average price was £220,680 over 1335 transactions, that’s a £6,000 rise
In 2021 the average price was £243,517 over 1938 transactions, that’s a £23,000 rise
In 2022 the average price was £257,232 over 1079 transactions (incomplete currently) That’s a £14,000 rise
That’s in increase over 4 years of in £42,558, that’s approximately 20% growth over 4 years!! That’s Astounding!
So what does all that mean?
- Even if house prices dropped 10% in Tamworth (which is unlikely), they will still be 14% up on January 2020*!
- Houses are still worth what someone is prepared to pay
- If we go back to pre-pandemic levels, properties were on the market for approximately 52 days before a sale was agreed rather than 52 minutes
- If you are buying and selling in the same market, concentrate on the cost to change
- Most mortgage rates are dropping (the same one I mentioned earlier is now at 4.89% instead of 5.89%) that’s nearly a 20% drop in 6 weeks
- The new “normal” for interest rates is likely to be 4-5%
- If you want to move home, pick the right estate agent to market yours that is going to get you the best price, not give you the highest valuation.
Please drop me a line if you want any more information.
Watch the video here. https://youtu.be/_lLdaZnpjcA
Anton (anton@next-place.co.uk)
*(source, Twindig)