Market Comment
Following the scramble at the petrol pumps in recent weeks, we couldn’t help but compare the queues for fuel with the queues for property.
Over the past eighteen months there have been queues of buyers and tenants wanting to find a property. The uplift in enquiries has kept agents rushed off their feet. The demand is higher than it’s ever been in working memory for many in the property business.
Things will probably normalise at the pumps before long. But the property industry is not like the fuel business. With property there is currently a supply issue in both sales and lettings. This difficulty will resolve itself when enough people in the existing housing stock want to move on, and the builders start building. Let’s hope Michael Gove - the nineteenth housing minister in the last twenty years - will remain in office long enough to address this problem.
Like fuel the property market will take time to settle, although it will take longer. But everyone should be aware that with property there is no normal. It is either flying high or flying low – or heading in one of those directions. Buyers and sellers must play the cards they have. But, buyers’ market or sellers’ market, it all usually evens itself out in the end.
So, be a property optimist. Don’t let the market rule you. Do what is suitable for you and your family when you need to. That way you will rule the market and not be a panic buyer or seller. If everyone does what you do there will be more property on the market to choose from.
