Things are looking positive for the UK property market. Property supply has increased by 13.3% in February. This increase shows that buyers might be making a slow return to market. This increase occurred in 83.7% of towns and cities within the UK. The London market grew at a rate lower than the national increase. The capital only saw a 4.7% increase.
According to the latest Property Supply Index from HouseSimple shows an increase of properties listed across the country. This is a somewhat normal response from the market as fewer properties are listed in the winter. The increase is due to the UK entering the busiest time of year for selling houses.
In some towns and ciities the property increase was up to 83.7%. Places such as Warwick had a 76.2% increase in listings in comparison to the previous month. Edinburgh saw a listing increase of 59.7%, and Carlisle saw a 54.6% rise.
In order to collect their data, HouseSimple looks at the data generated from more than 500,000 listed properties. By looking at this data HouseSimple is able to track the number of new properties that are marketed every month. The information from the index covers 100 major towns and cities throughout the UK. The Index also looks at all London boroughs.
However, in and amongst all this good news, some parts of the UK did see a decrease in property supply over the last month. Bootle swathe number of new listings fall by 12.6%. Other places that experienced a fall in property listings are Guilford, which fell by 12.4%. Salford saw a drop of 8.5% in listings.
An encouraging sign from these indexes is that supply levels are higher than October 2016. The HouseSimple survey also shows that the property supply is just below the September 2016 levels. October and September are seen as good months for the property market, so the fact that February’s numbers are of a similar standard is reassuring
