Despite the arctic weather conditions 2010 seems to have got off to a reasonable start. We’ve had a flurry of valuation requests, no less than sixteen in the first week which is probably about as many as I valued in the last three months of 2009!  How many of these will ultimately come to the market remains to be seen but early indications would suggest that the general sentiment is that sellers are feeling that now might be the time to move.

The lack of supply continues to be the single biggest factor dominating the market and even if every one of the sixteen valuations comes to the market I fear that it will not even begin to dent current demand that we are receiving.  That said, there remains a two-tier market in place and sellers should be aware of this.  Buyers are selective, true prime properties, those on the best floors and in the very best roads will continue to sell at prices equivalent to (or in some cases in excess of) 2007 levels, while those that for whatever reason are not deemed to be as prime will still sell but not at the same levels as they would have at the peak.  Some agents appear to be unaware of this fact and about a third of the valuations that were carried out by us were of properties already on the market with other agents.  In virtually every case it was blindingly obvious that the sole reason a sale had not taken place before the end of 2009 (and the last three months of 2009 were very strong) was that the agent had over estimated the value.

As is inevitable in a market that has pent up demand but a lack of supply, agents have started giving would be sellers over inflated valuations in order to entice vendors to sell and to sell with them.  So be warned, the market is good but not everything in sight is selling at the prices being quoted by agents. But that’s still a massive improvement on this time last year and we remain cautiously optimistic for the coming year.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Market Comment, Property, Property Sales. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.