House sales surge 23% in March
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Agency Express’s Property Activity Index for March shows monthly house sales were up 23%.
This was a fall on the whopping 38% increase house sales seen in February but it was the second month-on-month rise.
Monthly house sales were up 23.2% in March following February’s rise of 38.3%. Sales reached their highest level since May last year and were 4.8% up on March 2010 and 10.2% up on March 2009. Each region saw an increase in sales ranging from a 47.8% rise in the East Midlands to 3.7% in Wales. Greater London sales rose 37.3%, in the North East they were up 36.4% and Yorkshire saw a rise of 32.2%.
It was also the third consecutive month rise in the number of ‘For Sale’ listings which were up up 25.0%, the highest level achieved since August 2010. This is also 6.4% higher than March 2010 and 47.7% higher than 2009.
All regions bar one saw improvements in new ‘For Sale’ listings. Scotland saw a rise of 42.4% followed by Greater London at 39.1%, the North West at 37.4% and the South East at 26.6%. The North East was the only region to see a fall with the number of new For Sale listing dropping -0.8%.
Stephen Watson, managing director, Agency Express, says: “This latest set of data paints an encouraging picture for the housing sector.
“Not only has there been a significant uplift in new ‘For Sale’ listings and house sales but the trend over the last two or three months indicates that this might be sustainable.”
He adds that the fact that London is showing strong growth in both the number of properties being put on the market and the number of sales that are going through is a good sign as traditionally this has then radiated out into the rest of the regions in following months.
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Readers' comments (1)
Agabus25 | 4 Apr 2011 4:44 pm
What a total non-story! It's called a sasonal pattern. For the last 15 years March has averaged 24-25% more sales than February. So the headline should be "Totally typical month-on-month trend". What you should be worried about is that houses for sale are up 25% because the rises month-on-month through the rest of the first half of a year are much more muted. April is typically less than 1% above March, May 10% up on April and June 8% up on May. Into that climate, there is excess supply and that means competition and that means cut prices. Will you trumpet that so triumphantly? Of course not.
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