It’s Not All Doom and Gloom for the Stoke-on-Trent Property Market

With interest rates rising, the cost of living going up and the uncertainty in the House of Commons, it’s no wonder this all has a massive effect on the property market in Stoke-on-Trent. You will often see negative news articles with headlines such as ‘Will house prices go down? Why Liz Truss’s economic gamble could trigger a UK housing market crash’ and ‘House market crash will take prices back to 2013, warns City economist.’ Whilst there is no telling whether these news articles will be right or wrong, there is no doubt this creates unrest and uncertainty in the general public. I also like to think a lot of these headlines are clickbait, and if you care to read the articles, quite often the journalist will contradict themselves and not back their statements up.

 I am here to give you the TRUTH. I have done my research and found the statistics relating to our local property market in Stoke-on-Trent, and I’ll be comparing the figures with this time last year and this time last week. So, let’s dive straight in.

Available Number of Homes Growing

The available number of homes has increased by 3.6% from last week and we have had a 21% increase from last year. This means homes are taking longer to sell at the moment.

There has been a 30% increase in homes coming to the market from last week! Which means more people are now deciding to sell. There’s been a 10% increase in homes coming to the market from this time last year.

Sales Agreed

There has been a 3.3% increase in sales agreed from this time last week; however, there’s a 12.5% decrease from this time last year. Which is to be expected due to the uncertainty in the market.

Price Reduction

 This is our most important statistic. There’s an 18.7% decrease in price reductions from last week; however, it’s an increase of 105% compared with this time last year. 

What does this mean for Stoke-on-Trent?

What these figures tell me is that the property market in Stoke-on-Trent is slowly starting to go back to the way it was before all this Stamp Duty and Covid craziness. However, this does not mean your property price will decrease! It’s how you market your home that is the most important thing.

One point to realise is that your home may not sell overnight like houses have been doing - it could take a few extra weeks to sell.

Our main thing of advice is that you cannot market your home at the higher end. I have been saying this for weeks now. Stop marketing your home at the highest price and stop letting other estate agents over value your home! Put your home on the market for a realistic / low figure. Buyers buy with their heart, but they filter with their brain – they filter which properties they look at based on price. What you need to do is make sure you have a price that excites buyers, because if you get buyers excited by price, you can then get them emotionally falling in love with your property and then, through competition, get a decent figure in this market.

Just another interesting fact for all you readers. In 2019 60%-70% of houses were sold via the second agent! Meaning the first estate agent got it wrong and more than likely overvalued. The figures of 60%-70% are slowly starting to count for 2022 too. So, be careful of overvaluing and make sure you use an estate agent you can trust.

If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me on 07380 849807 or liz@qualityestateagents.co.uk