2024 housing market tumbleweed

[Rollercoaster1920]

I was expecting / hoping for a load of property to come on the market after Christmas to get the spring wave. But it is absolutely dead. 2 properties in my searches have been added, one was a relist I saw last year. That is really quiet!

My searches are for South West London family houses BTW.

I know, I'm in exactly the same position (North east London though!).

I was expecting a flood of pent-up property but - nothing. We've just sold our house and gone in to rented, so will just keep waiting to see what happens.

Give them a chance. They need to tidy up Christmas and spring clean. Most of the bounce is from March when gardens look better and sun starting to come out. Surely the estate agents only went back to work today!

It's been half a day!

I think most people wait until the Spring to list their house as long as they aren't in a desperate hurry to sell. Gardens always look so much better in the spring compared to January for one thing and this time of year is just depressing weather wise which I would worry would stop me getting the best price for my house. I would expect more activity in 2024 than 23 especially after the base rate starts to fall as that will change market sentiment.

The post Christmas bounce is an increase in people looking online (maybe stuck at home with relatives and fantasising about more space?!).

The properties tend to appear from February half term onwards once the people who started looking online now get their property decluttered and sorted out ready to go on the market. And once some spring flowers and slightly better weather to make photos more appealing.

Ok great, this is some wonderful perspective. Much needed right now!

I am guessing the spring bounce really depends on home value. I have searches set across about 14 areas, mostly North and some Midlands, and the day after boxing day I had x15 the usual amount of properties come through.

But the top of my search criteria is 450k.

In the three weeks leading up to and after Xmas, the x2 exactly at 450k I was watching were removed, presumably to re-list in Spring.

I guess those selling seriously priced family homes really will wait til spring flowers start blooming because of the sums involved.

Less than 350k are still coming through on a fairly regular basis, albeit slightly slower since November.

We have a lot of new stuff coming to market here on the South Coast
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-12923195/Rightmove-saw-RECORD-number-new-property-listings-Boxing-Day.html

It's maybe a bit soon after Christmas?

But also when sale prices aren't attractive to sellers, very few houses go on the market and everything stagnates. Then sooner or later it all starts up with a boom and races away again, and very few people have benefitted.

I think indications are that the property market isn't going to just follow patterns that have existed whilst interest rates were stable. People wanting to move still need to be able to afford to buy somewhere else and if they can't do that they won't move. I don't think the bounce will be very significant this year.

I think it's too soon for the after Christmas rush, many agents and solicitors will have been on leave last week and we're still only 1 or 2 working days into the new year (and it's noticeably quiet at work here so i think quite a lot of folk are still on leave as our schools don't go back til Monday).

My DD works in a one office EA and they have 5 being listed this side of the new year that they were prepared for and holding onto for the new year.

I don't know when they go live but they haven't yet.

Apparently there were record numbers of properties listed on Rightmove on boxing day, but I didn't see any of them. Up 26% on last year's record. But all I see is the same sad overpriced properties relisted or obviously awkward to sell.

We have been spending our Christmas holidays doing little jobs ready to list the house. Most people who planned to sell after Christmas wouldn’t have been ready by 01/01.

I am more hopeful for the middle/end of the month

We're the same.

EA coming next week to take photos etc.

Worried that there won't be a house to buy.

More may come on after the kids go back to school

It's more likely that we will see an increase in new properties coming online from mid-late Feb-May in an effort to take advantage of the 'Spring bounce'. I expect people are using this New Year period to tidy up, make sure their gardens look good, etc before marketing.

spring wave

Given that Spring doesn't start for about another 10 weeks, you may be jumping the gun!

As the original post was written on the 2nd of Jan (at lunchtime!), that's hardly much time to take a view of the market.

A lot of agents don't open between Christmas and New Year, or at most have a very skeleton staff.

It's not really til mid-Feb/early-March that things become noticeably more active.

I am worried we should be waiting until Spring but there are so few suitable properties around here that even a huge spring glut could mean … 1

1 or 2 coming on the market now so I was too soon! I thought estate agents would have some prepublshed that would appear after Christmas like the boxing day sales are in shops. I was wrong!

I've had a couple of estate agent emails about off market properties too

Posted elsewhere but for others .....

Where abouts? I'm in the same area and have been really pleased with how many have come on since NYD in my bracket and area.

@OhpoorMe I'm in Stokey. I'm just seeing obviously hard to sell properties, most ex-rental and some I've seen before. Maybe you have more money than me? 😂

Oh me too! But I'm looking more at whalthamstow for my next move (the classic step!) I agree it's so budget dependent though, feels like some up to £600k, lots over £1m, and nothing in between!

Yes exactly! We are a bit stuck here because of schools, if we can't make it work here we're thinking to move out to Ipswich or somewhere, possibly Kent. Kids are in schools and happy though, so we are making compromises (mainly on space!)
Good luck, Walty is a good choice