It recorded a fall of 10.1% in monthly house sales which is the sixth month this year that there has been a month-on-month contraction in the number of houses sold and raises concerns about the fragility of the housing market recovery.
However, compared to September 2009 monthly sales were still encouragingly up by 4.7% and were 20.0% better than the levels of sales seen in September 2007. Whilst many people believe that September is a boom month for house sales activity, only once in the last 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. 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, 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 has 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 two regions with an increase in the number of properties being sold. In Scotland they rose 7.6% and in the West Midlands where there was a 5.2%.
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 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%).
