Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Rising/Falling house prices - it's irrelevant to an estate agent


There is a huge amount of press coverage today about the current state of the UK housing market.

There is this, tongue in cheek, take from The Guardian where Patrick Collinson laughs at the members of the RICS who blame falling prices on the media.

The Savills "suckers rally" report has attracted plenty of coverage too but my favourite is this article by Tracy Corrigan in the Daily Telegraph.

She says that falling prices would be good for first time buyers and struggling home owners. She finishes by saying:

The problem with the British housing market is not that we all aspire to own property. That is perfectly sensible. The problem is that we sometimes forget why we want to own our own homes.

As I have said before house prices are actually pretty irrelevant if you earn your crust as an estate agent (or buying agent come to that).  The only figure that really counts is the number of transactions in your particular marketplace.

Sadly these statistics simply don't grab the headlines and aren't seen as the latest "hot topic" at dinner parties. Try talking about them and watch the eyes glaze over.

If you are interested though then there's a great article here showing where you can find these crucial (but slightly boring) statistics for the UK market.

If anyone knows where I can find similar stats showing international buyers in France please do get in touch.

www.cognacproperty.com

1 comment:

Chris said...

Very true, the number of transactions is what is most important to any agents in the property market, and unfortunately there are too few transactions happening these days.