Weekly Property Newsletter - Week Ending 07/02/16

Our weekly newsletter on the property market will keep you up to date with all the latest news and legislations!

Our newsletter is published every week reporting on the most important news over the past week.

Rightmove Reports Busiest Month Ever For Traffic

Friday 5th February

There may be a housing shortage however Rightmove has reported having the busiest-ever month with visits in January up 21m on the same month last year.

Rightmove says there were over 127m visits last month, up almost 20% on January 2015 and surpassing the previous record of 118m set last August.

All together, the nation spent the equivalent of over 2,000 years browsing Rightmove in January. The busiest single day was Tuesday 26th with 4.7m visits. Page views for the month hit a new record of 1.7bn, meaning people looked through over 1m more pages of property than in January 2015, as reported by ProeprtyEye.

Rightmove director Miles Shipside said: “These January statistics should give both sales and lettings agents confidence that an active year with plenty of business opportunities lies ahead.

David Gascoyne, Sales and Lettings Manager at Residential Estates said “this is a promising start to the new year. The sudden increase may be due to the rush before the new stamp duty fee, however it is exciting to see that despite the housing shortage, people are still keen to buy and let property.”

Halifax Reports Average House Prices to now beat over £212,000

Friday 5th February

Average house prices in January stood at £212,430, the Halifax has reported, which is 9.7% above that of January in 2015 and is a 1.7% rise on December.

Economist Martin Ellis said: “The imbalance between supply and demand continues to exert significant upward pressure on house prices. This situation looks set to persist over the coming months.”

Ellis Bradshaw, Sales and Lettings Coordinator at Residential Estates said “this quarter was always going to have a surge due to the April Stamp Duty surcharge. Prices may level out again when demand subsides slightly.”

Fees in the spotlight as Telegraph runs poll about online agents

Thursday 4th February

Country-wide, estate agents’ fees are varying remarkably.

The Telegraph, reporting on a survey by online agent Urban, says that fees vary between 0.9% and 2%, and asks its readers whether they are paying their estate agent “over the odds”.

The Telegraph does caution: “Many will prefer the security and face-to-face interaction of using a physical estate agent, but billions of pounds worth of property is now sold successfully through online agents every year.

“Whether they are as effective at shifting your property as a traditional agent, or whether face-to-face service is irreplaceable, are still points of debate, but the potential savings are certainly significant.

7,000 Potential Tenants – Is this the Most Popular Landlord?

Thursday 4th February

Think of a job interview, would you go for a more traditional approach or something a little more quirky? Well for one landlord, he has experienced the spectrum of approaches, from rapping to dancing, playing piano to telling jokes. All of this just to be a

flatmate.

In the two weeks since SpareRoom founder Rupert Hunt advertised two rooms in his home in Spitalfields, London, he has received over 7,250 applications.

You may be thinking ‘who has he employed for his marketing?!’ however, Hunt has advertised the flat as whatever the tenant would like to pay.

Desperate to share with Hunt is a varied bunch of people, aged between 17 and 68, and including three former contestants of the Apprentice 2015 as well as Alan Sugar’s cousin.

Other applicants include a former Miss Universe, three well-known YouTubers and the Guinness World Record holder for the most jokes told in an hour.

It genuinely is all very amusing and certainly of interest to letting agents as a marketing exercise, with an insight into tenants’ aspirations.

Zoopla confirms query over property listings

Thursday 4th February, 2016

A batch of listings has been investigated by Zoopla. The portal said the listings had been uploaded for the first time on Tuesday.

PropertyEye (EYE) had sent Zoopla a number of seemingly suspicious listings.

The portal named no names, but last night Zoopla told EYE: “These listings were uploaded to our website yesterday for the first time and as soon as we became aware of them we contacted the relevant agent member for verification.

“We take these matters very seriously and have a dedicated compliance team whose sole job is to protect the integrity of our listings and will ensure that the appropriate action is taken asap.”

Separately, Rightmove has announced an inquiry into so-called portal juggling.