The “For Sale” board firm recorded a fall of 10.1% in monthly house sales raising concerns about the fragility of the housing market recovery.
More positive however, was that compared to September 2009 monthly sales the number of properties selling this year were up by 4.7% and were 20.0% better than the levels of sales seen in September 2007.
Agency Express said that while many people believe September to be a boom month for house sales activity, only once in the past four years has there been a month-on-month increase.
There was also a similar story for properties being put up ‘For Sale’ in September. The firm said there was a drop across the UK of 10.4%, with all regions witnessing a decline. Again, September’s level was significantly higher than the previous two Septembers, being 39.9% up on September 2009 and 15.8% up on September 2008.
Stephen Watson, managing director of Agency Express, said: “It appears that the attempted housing market recovery, which at its best was muted, has been exposed as being very fragile. Although the level of monthly house sales it as its lowest since January we are still seeing activity that is comfortably higher than twelve months ago and there have been pockets of growth around the country.
“The balancing out of the supply and demand of properties has contributed to the current picture as have the tighter restrictions on lending. With house prices reportedly dropping, we expect there to be a gradual pick-up of activity in October and November.”
There were four regions where there was an increase in the number of properties being sold. In Yorkshire sales were up 10.0%, in Scotland they rose 7.6%, in the West Midlands there was a 5.2% increase and in London sales were up 3.2%. And, six cities experienced an uplift in sales in September – Glasgow (+12.7%), Birmingham (+10.3%), Newcastle (+4.9%), Norwich (+4.5%), Manchester (+3.2%), Oxford (+2.3%).
The South East had the smallest reduction in the number of properties being put on the market with a fall of just -2.4% followed by Yorkshire at -3.5% and the North West at -6.5%. There were five cities that actually saw an upturn in the number of houses being put up ‘For Sale’ in September. Coventry led the way with a considerable increase of 20.2% followed by Southampton (+8.1%), Leicester (+5.4%), Bristol (+2.5%) and Manchester (+1.7%).
