Property Market Harlow 2023
As the end of November starts to get ever closer, Jukes Estate Agents Harlow look back at what’s been happening in CM17, CM18, CM19, & CM 20 during 2023. Data supplied by Home.co.uk (https://www.home.co.uk/) who are one of the largest suppliers of property data in the UK.
Whilst there have been pockets in the UK Property Market that has shown growth during 2023. Harlow has faired little or no better than the majority of the UK.
Jukes Estate Agents Harlow started collating these in depth statistics in May 2023 when they realised that Home.co.uk collect excellent local property data.
Selling times in Harlow
As you can see from the graphic above, selling times have risen every month this year.
Interestingly though, Jukes Estate Agents Harlow have selling times that are bucking the trend!
Their selling times month on month have hardly changed and are the quickest in Harlow by a country mile.
Why? Well its simply down to marketing and price!
Properties sold every 90 days
Every month, Jukes looked at how many properties had sold the previous 90 days.
Going back to May, they reported that 375 properties had sold. As you can see from the graphic, that has also dropped every month. The last 90 day period saw just 311 properties sold (a drop of some 17%).
This set of figures back up the increase in selling times.
How did Jukes Estate Agents do?
Harlow Property Market 2023
The graphic above shows quite clearly that whilst the amount of property sold in Harlow decreased every month, Jukes Estate Agents Harlow increased the amount of property sold every month except one.
This has to be because of the marketing and pricing!
Selling times by price band
As you can see from the graphic above, every price band of property has risen virtually every month.
You would expect that the higher the property value, the longer it takes to sell. This has always been the case. It is a simple numbers game. However, it is somewhat disappointing that the Harlow Property Market is faltering.
Selling times by number of bedrooms
Again, it is a similar story when it comes to selling times by number of bedrooms. With the exception of one bedroom properties that reduced in selling time around June / July, and then has remained fairly stable, the rest have increased significantly. There is a worrying surge in selling times for 4 bedroom properties.
Selling times by property type
Selling times by property type is pretty much the same picture. There has been a leveling off of selling times for flats. There has been a real surge in the selling times for semi & detached properties.
Conclusion
The graphs speak for themselves really. The key here is to see what if anything can be done other than to wait for interest rates to drop and therefore mortgages to drop.
Co owner of Jukes Estate Agents Harlow Geoff Flewers believes that there is: ” I must sound like a record with a crack in it! However, I find it amazing that so many properties are coming to market at ridiculous prices”! He continued: “Latest data available shows some established Harlow Estate Agents have reduced over 75% of their stock, Simply shocking”! “Selling times would be vastly reduced and the market moving much better if agents had honest and ‘grown up’ conversations with their vendors”.
The Bank of England recently suggested that the current BOE base rate of 5.25% is set to remain for the next 6 months. This could be followed by perhaps two more reductions in 2024 taking it to 4.75%. If this proves to be the case, whilst mortgage rates will no doubt reduce slowly over the next year, they are not going to drop by massive amounts.
This is all part of what Jukes Estate Agents Harlow considers to be the new ‘normalisation’ of the Harlow Property Market. Flewers continues: ” I think we have to put 2020, 2021, & 2022 out of our thoughts. If interest rates every drop to the abnormally low rates available back then, then it’s going to be many years away”!
This is probably based on recent BOE forecasts that they want to see inflation down to around 2% and interest rates at around 3.75%. They think that the former will happen end of 2024, and the latter by the end of 2025.