· 35% drop in the number of properties for sale in Huddersfield
in the last 12 months.
·
355 Huddersfield 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 53 days.
·
The £100k to £200k price range in Huddersfield is
the most active, where it only takes 33 days to sale agreed, but the £400k to £500k
is taking 210 days.
·
Yet, what issues cause the people of Huddersfield
to want to move home and what can Huddersfield people, who want to move in 2022,
do to ensure they sell and find the home of their dreams?
There are 289 properties for sale today in Huddersfield;
roll the clock back exactly a year, and the figure was 447 - there’s been a
drop of 35%. This drop is being dubbed ‘for sale board crunch’.
The ‘for sale board crunch’ has left many
prospective Huddersfield home buyers stressing to find the right Huddersfield property
as the number of properties available to buy has dropped significantly.
I am sure you know people looking for their next Huddersfield
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 Huddersfield home
buyers are in a state of misery as Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield
properties available to rent is at a 15-year low.
So
why is the Huddersfield property market this way?
Demand for Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield
property market has been on fire! The lockdown changed what homeowners are
looking for in their Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield buyers' wish lists.
Around
36% more Huddersfield 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
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 Huddersfield property now?
Huddersfield
Apartments – 79 days
Huddersfield
Terraced/Town House – 59 days
Huddersfield
Semi-Detached – 33 days
Huddersfield
Detached – 69 days
This means it is a seller’s market in Huddersfield,
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 Huddersfield sellers prefer to find their
future Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield sellers put
their property onto the market whilst they were hunting for their next ‘forever
home’.
However, not all Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield 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 that Huddersfield property will sell even before the photographs have been
taken of your home.
Yet, many Huddersfield
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 Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield 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 Huddersfield.
If you would like a chat about
anything mentioned in this article, feel free to drop me a message or call me.
