Press Release: 00061

7 January 2008

Estate agents feeling the pinch

Source: http://www.ukpropertyshop.co.uk

December is always the slowest month for the property business. Activity by buyers and sellers generally begins to get quieter in November, slows right down in December and then takes off again with a bang at the start of the New Year. Well, 2007 was no exception to this rule, except that the slow down began earlier than usual in October, then November was very subdued and by December more or less nothing was happening at all. However, as predicted, there has been a major upsurge of buying interest at the beginning of January, but we will have to wait and see how this pans out.

Annual property sales volumes have recently been in the region of 1.3 million homes, but it seems that the recent slowdown will cut this to around 900,000 over the coming year. Not exactly the disaster that some newspaper pundits seem to be enjoying, but it is clearly having an effect on estate agents. The Your Move chain of over 300 branches, despite apparently achieving forecast profits of £36 million, has just announced that it is closing 12 of its busiest offices.

Buy-to-let investors continue to be another major influence on the current property market. Mortgage lending for this kind of purchase is now even tighter than last month and a number of lenders have even stopped offering any buy to let mortgages at all. At the same time, there is also a glut of new build flats in the course of construction, aimed mainly at the buy-to-let investor, but no takers. Further confusion has been caused by the recent budget announcement that capital gains tax is to be chopped from 40% to 18%, so anyone who is thinking of selling their investment property is going to wait at least until April, when they will add to the total of stock for sale. Well, if this all adds up to a drop in prices at the lower end of the market, it sounds like good news at last for beleaguered first time buyers - just as long as they can get mortgages.

The UK Property Shop Moving Location Index December league table of most popular Towns is less relevant than usual, due to the reduced volume of enquiries, so we are publishing the Counties league table for a change. Dorset and Warwickshire emerged as clear favourites for people thinking of buying property in these counties, presumably as homes to live in and not investments. At the other end of the scale, it seems that, on balance, residents of Torfaen, Caerphilly, Falkirk and the Isle of Man are perhaps more eager to move the other way.

Moving Location Index (Counties) - December 2007

Rank	County	Points
1	Dorset	130
2	Warwickshire	121
3	Cornwall	84
4	Highland	80
5	Channel Islands	75
6	Pembrokeshire	63
7	Monmouthshire	62
8	Stirling	60
9	Gloucestershire	59
10	Hertfordshire	59
11	Perth & Kinross	56
12	Suffolk	53
13	Dunbartonshire	50
14	Somerset	44
15	Bridgend	44
16	Cumbria	42
17	Angus	42
18	Dumfries & Galloway	41
19	Oxfordshire	40
20	Ceredigion	33
21	Argyll & Bute	30
22	Tyne & Wear	26
23	Worcestershire	25
24	Ayrshire	25
25	Carmarthenshire	23
26	County Antrim	22
27	Isle of Wight	20
28	County Fermanagh	20
29	Aberdeenshire	14
30	Sussex	13
31	Hampshire	13
32	Vale of Glamorgan	12
33	East Lothian	10
34	Powys	10
35	Wrexham	10
36	Fife	9
37	Gwynedd	5
38	Moray	5
39	Inverclyde	3
40	Renfrewshire	1
41	Clackmannanshire	1
42	Denbighshire	0
43	Northumberland	-2
44	Scottish Borders	-6
45	West Lothian	-7
46	Lincolnshire	-7
47	Isle of Man	-8
48	Falkirk	-8
49	Caerphilly	-8
50	Torfaen	-9

Note for Editors about the Moving Location Index and UK Property Shop

The UK Property Shop Moving Location Index is based on data from a sample of people looking to buy a property and using the website to register their property search requirements with estate agents in each town. From this data a score is calculated according to the number who are considering either moving within the town where they live, or away from their home town and into another town. The Moving Location Index is not a measure of quality, simply an indication of the relative proportion of home buyers wishing to move into or out of a town, which is influenced by many factors.

The UK Property Shop website www.ukpropertyshop.co.uk was launched in 1999 and is a popular source of information for people looking to buy, sell, rent or let residential property in the UK. It also publishes the National Directory of Estate Agents, the most complete and up to date register of all UK estate agents and letting agents.