There’s no fire without smoke….

When a building goes up in flames, the media reports a fire: what it doesn’t do is report the smoke beforehand. Similarly, no one at the moment is headlining the marked increase in property activity witnessed by estate agents in the lead-up to Christmas. In fact, far from a seasonal slowdown, there were more viewings in each month of November and December than in September. There is no smoke without fire and with this pickup in activity, declining inflation and the likelihood of falling mortgage interest rates through 2024, we can look forward to an improving property market in the coming months. No doubt also, both Conservative and Labour parties will try to lure the electorate with new housing policies designed to stimulate the property market further.
 
Nor is this optimism based solely on the above. 2023 saw increased interest from first-time buyers. This trend should continue as we emerge into a more buoyant market that also stimulates second movers, thus making more first-time buyer properties available. This would be the long-wished-for virtuous circle.
 
Most baby boomers and millennials consider property as part-home and part-investment vehicle. For them property has been the gift that has kept on giving. But let’s look at the property market from the eyes of twenty-year-olds. For them the last decade has been challenging. This group, often priced out of home ownership and suffering increasingly high rents, says they aren’t looking for investment opportunities they’re simply looking for somewhere to lay their heads. Out of the mouths of babes, Generation Z reminds us that first and foremost a home is to live in.
 
Nor should we forget the role the older generation is playing in this residential resurgence. Baby Boomers might not be moving much themselves at the moment but in 2023 the Bank of Mum and Dad and the Bank of Grandma and Grandpa invested over £8 billion in property: that’s not personal investment but an investment in the futures of their children and grandchildren.
 
2024 should be a year of looking forward and growing opportunity. Above all it should be a time when property is purchased, but more to live in than to trade in. Now that should give the media a blazingly good headline.

NB The challenge for the media is that the statistics they more generally report on are seen in the rear-view mirror and not in real time. September 2023 was a low point. At Lane & Holmes we agreed twice the number of sales between October and December 2023 than we did in 2022. Confidence is building. Just saying….