Four in ten places defy Brexit housing market
The top ten cities and towns defying the woes of a Brexit-induced housing market have been named.
There has been a fall of 1.3 per cent in new property listings between February to March across the UK, but four in ten places have bucked this trend and saw a rise in the number of homeowners taking the plunge and selling their homes.
According to the latest data from Housesimple, published today (April 2), Scotland led the charge with three major towns north of the border seeing listing numbers increase 25 per cent. Inverness, which came out top of the table, even saw an increase of 56.9 per cent.
Eastern regions Huntington, Hemel Hempstead and Chelmsford all saw an increase of more than 19 per cent of the number of properties coming to market, while the north west was higher still as Southport and Rochdale saw more than 25 per cent more listings.
Homeowners in the south seemed less eager to sell and Salisbury was the only southern region to appear in the top ten of the Brexit defying markets.
Sam Mitchell, CEO of Housesimple, said: "The level of seller and buyer activity has been encouragingly resilient considering the ferocity of Brexit uncertainty in March.
"Seller activity is slightly down on February when you look at the overall picture, but many areas have actually seen more homeowners marketing in March.
"It’s reassuring to see defiant sellers driving the market forward, particularly in many northern areas of the country, such as Yorkshire and the North West, and north of the border in Scotland."
Town/City | Region | % increase in new listings in March 2019 vs February 2019 |
Inverness | Scotland | 56.9 |
Perth | Scotland | 43.6 |
Southport | North West | 37.5 |
Huntingdon | East | 32.8 |
Aberdeen | Scotland | 26.7 |
Rochdale | North West | 26.5 |
Hemel Hempstead | East | 20.6 |
Salisbury | South West | 20.3 |
Chelmsford | East | 19.8 |
Stirling | Scotland | 18.9 |
Housesimple's Property Supply Index analyses the number of new properties listed each month by estate agents across more than 100 major UK towns and cities.
It found that in London, although new supply was down 2 per cent in March compared to February, four in 10 boroughs saw new supply levels rise last month.
David Hollingworth, communications director at Land and Country mortgages, said: "This shows how different regions can behave quite differently and while activity levels are overall down there are pockets that have shown some increases despite the ongoing uncertainty.
"This may still be increases from a relatively low base of new seller activity but is encouraging all the same.
"London and the South East will still carry high prices compared with other regions and will be some of the least affordable areas so any dent to consumer confidence has been felt in these areas and London activity has dipped more substantially than the reduction to the UK as a whole."
imogen.tew@ft.com
