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NAEA Propertymark report reveals post-election surge
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
The December Housing Report from NAEA Propertymark reveals that property sales and mortgage approvals ended the year on the rise off the back of a “post-election surge”.
Mark Hayward, chief executive of NAEA Propertymark, said: “After a period of suppressed market activity due to Brexit and political uncertainty, the clear outcome of the general election in December has injected some much-needed confidence into the market. Despite it typically being a quieter time of year seasonally, our figures have shown positive trends with both demand and the number of sales being high in comparison to previous years, as both buyers and sellers no longer hold off on their plans. This is an encouraging close to the year and we hope to see more of this stability in 2020.”
Meanwhile, mortgage data from trade body UK Finance suggests agents could be in for a busy few months. Lenders reported that the number of mortgage approvals for home purchase were up 8% annually last year to 507,789 during 2019. There were 32,451 home purchase approvals in December 2019, up 24% annually.
These statistics show that the property market remained relatively resilient in the face of an extremely unsettling year in politics. Now that there is a degree of certainty with a majority government, the Boris bounce is taking effect, people are starting to move again and are no longer putting their lives on hold. 2020 may yet have a few hurdles along the way but transaction levels and overall lending volumes in 2019 have held up and are likely to grow during Q1 and 2 of 2020, as the pent-up demand in the market is released and this should boost the property market in the year ahead.
