August Property Review Newmarket - Ely - Bury St Edmunds
August Update.
August Property Update
THE LOCAL PICTURE
NEWMARKET
Around 426 properties were being advertised in the latest market snapshot, with a median asking price of approximately £310,000.
The average age of available stock was around 175 days, with 33 properties newly listed during the previous 14 days. (home.co.uk)
Properties are currently taking around 13 weeks on average to sell according to GetAgent’s market data. (GetAgent)
Newmarket remains particularly price sensitive. Buyers have choice and can compare one property against another very quickly.
Being roughly the right price is no longer enough.
ELY
The latest August snapshot showed around 419 properties advertised for sale, with a median asking price of approximately £360,000.
What interests me more is the age of the stock.
The average property currently available had been on the market for around 176 days, and only 14% of properties had been listed for less than a month. (home.co.uk)
Separate market data suggests homes in Ely are currently taking around 12 weeks to sell. (getagent.co.uk)
There are buyers in Ely.
The challenge for sellers is making sure their home stands out from everything else those buyers are being shown.
BURY ST EDMUNDS
Bury has a large available pool of property.
The latest snapshot showed around 980 properties for sale, with a median asking price of approximately £300,000 and 55 new properties coming to market within the previous 14 days. The average age of available stock was around 205 days. (home.co.uk)
GetAgent’s data puts the average time before a Bury St Edmunds property goes under offer at approximately 11 weeks. (GetAgent)
Again, buyers exist. The difficulty is getting them to choose your property rather than somebody else’s.
SO WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING?
Rightmove’s August figures show average asking prices across the East of England falling 1.3% during the month and sitting 1.6% below a year ago, with an average of 67 days required to find a buyer. (rightmove.co.uk)
That tells us something important.
There isn’t necessarily a shortage of people wanting to move.
There certainly isn’t a shortage of property for them to choose from.
The problem is increasingly the gap between what some sellers would like their home to be worth and what today’s buyer is willing — or financially able — to pay.
Mortgage costs matter here.
The average five-year fixed mortgage used in Zoopla’s analysis has moved from around 4% in January to around 4.8% in August. (zoopla.co.uk)
That directly affects borrowing power.
MY VIEW FOR SEPTEMBER
I expect activity to improve as the summer holidays finish and more buyers restart their searches.
But I wouldn’t confuse more activity with rapidly rising prices.
They’re two completely different things.
The homes most likely to sell this autumn will be those that:
Price correctly from day one.
Present properly.
Use excellent photography and video.
Are actively marketed — not simply uploaded to Rightmove.
Respond quickly to buyer enquiries.
Have an agent prepared to review, challenge and change the campaign when necessary.
September could provide a very useful selling window.
But simply putting a property online and waiting isn’t a marketing strategy.
Price captures buyers.
Overpricing kills momentum.
Marketing creates attention.
Negotiation protects the final result.
The property market isn’t dead.
It’s simply become far less forgiving.
Buyers are coming back. But they are being choosy.
August has been a quieter month for property, but the latest data is beginning to show a change.
Across the East of England, buyer searches are now 8.5% higher than a year ago. Nationally, searches are up 7% — the strongest annual improvement for 12 months. (Zoopla)
That is the good news.
The reality for sellers is that buyers also have 5% more homes to choose from, sales agreed nationally remain 6% below last year and higher mortgage rates have reduced typical buyer purchasing power by around 9% since January. (Zoopla)
So this isn’t a booming market.
It is a price-sensitive, selective market.
