- 25%
drop in the number of properties for sale in Neath in the last 12 months.
- 132
Neath homes have sold (stc) in the last three months alone, taking the time
from the ‘for sale board’ going up to sale agreed to a median of 26 days.
- The
£100k to £200k price range in Neath is the most active, where it only takes 22
days to sale agreed, but the £300k to £400k is taking 54 days.
- Yet
what issues cause the people of Neath to want to move home and what can Neath
people, who want to move in 2022, do to ensure they sell and find the home of
their dreams?
There are 105 properties for sale today in Neath;
roll the clock back exactly a year, and the figure was 140 – so there’s been a
drop of 25%. This drop is being dubbed ‘for sale board crunch’.
The ‘for sale board crunch’ has left many
prospective Neath home buyers stressed trying to find the right Neath property
as the number of properties available to buy has dropped significantly.
I am sure you know people looking for their next Neath
home, but when they see it on the portals (Rightmove, Zoopla, Boomin,
OnTheMarket etc.) the properties are gone within days.
With demand at an all-time high, many Neath home buyers
are in a state of misery as Neath house prices have grown in the last few
years, forcing many of them to review their plans.
They
are victims of the ‘for sale board crunch’ in the Neath property market, the
likes of which have not been seen since 2007.
Normally when there has been excess demand in the
residential sales market, that frothiness has been taken care of by people
moving into rented accommodation. However, the number of Neath properties available
to rent is at a 15-year low.
So
why is the Neath property market this way?
Demand for Neath homes has exceeded the number of
properties for sale since the general election in December 2019. After years of
long drawn out Brexit negotiations, homeowners and buyers were more confident about
their move. Many Neath people who put their home move on hold in 2018/19 had
more confidence to return to the market.
The first lockdown in the spring of 2020 did
nothing to quell this pent-up urge, and since the late spring of 2020, the Neath
property market has been on fire! The lockdown changed what homeowners were
looking for in their Neath home. Proximity to public transport dropped down the
wish list for buyers, and demand for apartments dropped. Whilst properties with
larger gardens and rooms that could double up as home offices tended to be at
the top of most Neath buyers’ wish lists.
Around
36% more Neath properties have sold in the last 18 months than the long-term 20-year
average.
Looking at the supply side of the equation, in the
last five years, an average of 204,410 new homes per year have been added to
the number of properties available in the UK. Also, 239,600 properties came
back into the market when they became available after their owners had sadly
passed away. Yet still, that isn’t enough. The country needs at least 300,000
new dwellings to keep pace with demand.
There is also another problem that has come to
light with the cladding issue of apartments. Just over three-quarters of a million
apartments have issues with cladding. Whilst these are being sorted out (which
will take many years), they are essentially unsaleable unless a fire safety
expert on these buildings signs them as safe.
These cladding issues prevent these apartments from
coming onto the market (thus reducing the supply of properties to buy). It also
precludes their owners from moving up the property ladder from their apartment to
a house. Also, many first-time buyers who can save a bigger deposit or be
gifted cash from the Bank of Mum and Dad are skipping the apartment as their
first home and going straight for a house, thus intensifying the lack of larger
properties for sale.
So,
how long does it take to sell a Neath property now?
Neath
Apartments – 16 days
Neath
Terraced / Town House – 24 days
Neath
Semi-Detached – 27 days
Neath
Detached – 44 days
This means it is a seller’s market in Neath,
empowering them to push up their asking prices in high demand areas. However, most
sellers are also buyers, which means the advantage they have on selling their
property is turned on its head when they come to buy.
Many Neath sellers prefer to find their future Neath
home before putting their current home on the market. That is making the lack of
properties on the market seem even harsher than it may otherwise be.
The
‘for sale board crunch’ would be somewhat eased if Neath sellers put their
property onto the market whilst they were hunting for their next ‘forever home’.
However, not all Neath homeowners are doing so, partially
because they (wrongly) believe they will be made homeless if they find a buyer
and can’t find another property to buy (remember,
you are not legally committed to moving until exchange of contracts).
A big issue
will be finding a suitable Neath home. We very much have a chicken and egg
scenario. Some homeowners are waiting for the right property to come onto the
market before they put their home on the market. This will probably mean that the
Neath property will sell even before the photographs have been taken of your
home.
Yet, many Neath homeowners are worried if they put their
house on the market and it sells, they won’t be able to find another suitable
home and thus be homeless.
Classic chicken and egg – so what do you do first?
There is another way of doing this. It’s a technique estate agents
used to use before the internet, and it’s called ‘chain building’. Many Neath
homeowners are contacting me to move home yet don’t want to be made homeless.
What we do is slowly build a group of people in a chain over many months. It
requires a lot of patience to build a chain downwards and upwards around you.
There is no
cost to this and no legal commitment to go through. It can take six, even
twelve months to build a chain of people who are prepared to wait for the chain
to form.
Yet, everyone normally gets their next ‘forever home’ by playing this long game.
Because if
you don’t play the long game, build relationships with Neath Estate Agents (who
can build these chains) and only rely on waiting for properties to appear on
Rightmove, Boomin, OnTheMarket or Zoopla, you will be sorely disappointed.
According to
national research from Denton House Research, 7 out of 8 people who viewed a
house through an estate agent in 2021 were not on the mailing list of that
agent before they viewed it.
That means
all these Neath properties built on a chain builder (as above) will sell, yet
won’t appear on Rightmove or Zoopla, meaning you will miss out.
You must get
yourself on the mailing list of our estate agency (and other agents if they do
this chain building) so you don’t miss out on your next forever home in Neath.
If you would like a chat about anything mentioned in this article, feel free to drop me a message or call me.
