Local agent says overpricing and the recent heatwave has not helped

Property on Deodar Road sold for £3,925,000

The local property market continued to suffer from the lack of activity which has been a feature of the last year. Barely a property a day has been recorded as changing hands by the Land Registry in the SW15 post code area between April and June and the latest quarter looks set to go from bad to worse with football and hot weather providing alternative attractions for home buyers.

According to the figures not a single new build property was sold in the second quarter adding to fears of an overhang of unsold inventory of high priced flats. Only nine new flats are recorded as being sold so far this year, all on the Upper Richmond Road in developments such as the Smyth and Henry Chester buildings but this is a tiny proportion of the potential supply.

In the secondary market 126 homes were sold at an average price of £762,543 a rise of 4.1% over the year. However this increase may have more to do with the shift in the type of property being sold with the collapse in demand for flats leading to a higher proportion of houses in the mix.

Allan Fuller of Allan Fuller Ltd estate agents commented, "The Putney sales market has been slower lately, some blame the football, and tennis but more likely the extreme hot weather has just put people off traipsing round houses. Today’s cooler weather and rain with forecast of lower temperatures to come is not just welcome by gardeners, it’s also likely to be good for estate agents!

"A general problem is that too much property comes on the market at too high a price, some agents do seem to price high to impress and get a property on their books, now those that have been sticking with little action are coming down in price so are much more likely to attract interest. My office is consistently proving that there are plenty of buyers if the price is right."

In the last few weeks a trading statement by Foxtons has shown that they have starting making losses due to a sharp fall in sales and other agents in the Putney area are finding the current market conditions a real struggle.

Demand continues to exist for larger family houses in the area. The top price achieved in this quarter was for a six bedroom house on Deodar Road. The property was listed for sale in February this year with an asking price of £3,950,000 and a sale was completed in May for £3,925,000. The last time it was sold was fourteen years ago when in May 2004 it changed hands for £1,650,000. This tops the price achieved in the last quarter which was £3,045,000 in February for a property on Chartfield Avenue.


The view you get for just under £4million


Allan Fuller said, "A quarter of one percent does not sound like a heck of a lot. But it does represent a 50% increase on the Bank of England base rate. For anyone with a mortgage that is not on fixed rate it will be a relatively small increase in monthly repayments. The fact that it is only the second rise in nearly 10 years does make it highly newsworthy. What is more relevant though is where will interest rates may be heading. Mark Carney when interviewed on Friday the 3rd of August was saying that future rises would be slow and gradual and when the economy was strong enough to justify increases. So I do not see that this action on its own will have much effect, and even if there are small increases over the next year or two we will still have amazingly low rates in historic terms."

One bright spot for local agents is rentals which continue to provide a stable revenue for some of the more established local firms. Allan Fuller said of this sector , "On the letting side of property we are getting high demand, it is interesting that today the RICS monthly reports that 22% of surveyors are seeing a reduction in the stock of rental property. Increasing legislation and tax disincentives are hitting some landlords. What has been a very successful Private Rented Sector could well diminish if landlords decide to quit. What is needed is a balance of a fair system that takes full account of the needs of tenants and landlords alike."

The latest House Price Index data published by the Land Registry shows that London prices are the only ones that have fallen over the last year (to May) with the average now £478,853.

Figures for July from the Nationwide House Price Index show that the average price of a home in the UK rose by 2.5% to £217,010.

The was before the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will increased rates at their next meeting at the beginning of the month from 0.5% to 0.75%.

Commenting on the rise in interest rates, Robert Gardner, Nationwide's Chief Economist, said, “Providing the economy does not weaken further, the impact of a further small rise in interest rates on UK households is likely to be modest.

“This is partly because only a relatively small proportion of borrowers will be directly impacted by the change. Most lending on personal loans and credit cards is fixed or tends to be unaffected by movements in the Bank Rate. Similarly, in recent years, the vast majority of new mortgages have been extended on fixed interest rates.”

Copyright notice: All figures in this article are based on data released by the Land Registry. The numbers are derived from analysis performed by PutneySW15.com. Any use of these numbers should jointly attribute the Land Registry and PutneySW15.com.

August 10, 2018