I attended the PropertyMark One event at the Ovo Arena Wembley in London last week and was on the sales agency panel to discuss how the market was performing.
PropertyMark is the leading membership body for property agents across the UK and, with well over 1,000 attendees, it is the biggest single day event for property agents in the country. You can find out more about it here
It was a packed-out day. As well as a full conference, there were 50 exhibitors showcasing their innovative services in a plaza and Tech Bar area.
The conference itself, hosted by TV and radio’s Jenni Falconer (a fellow Scot), started with a run through the market data from Timothy Bannister of Rightmove. Tim’s presentation was a gentle gallop through housing market trends and changes, not unlike those I produce myself!
The main theme was that metrics, such as sales subject to contract and reductions, were returning to 2019 levels after a strong 2021-22. It was not the case, at least not yet, that the market was being forced down below pre-pandemic levels despite the challenges of rising mortgage costs and the wider cost-of-living crisis. The proportion of Rightmove listings that receive an email enquiry in the first week is also higher than it was in the pre-pandemic period, although a little down on 2022 levels. More broadly, the presentation made the point clearly that setting realistic pricing levels at the outset was a major factor in the success of a sale. Properties that had to reduce price at a later date took significantly longer to sell and were also far more likely to fall through.
On the rental market, Tim showed the clear separation between demand and supply post-pandemic that has produced an availability and affordability crisis across the UK, which, if anything, is even more acute in Scotland. People looking to rent are increasingly needing to increase their search areas.
As our recent Summer Briefing shows, we are much in line with this analysis. The sales market has proven resilient so far and, although prices and activity levels are dropping, this correction is not expected to turn into a collapse. However, risks remain, particularly given the uncertain economic outlook and threat of mortgage rates rising further, which may mean that we are looking more at our downward scenarios rather than our central forecasts as the year progresses. The rental market, however, has a different type of problem, which is largely supply-led. Legislating against new supply, which is what the Scottish Government seems intent on doing, risks making this market imbalance far worse.
I made some of these points on the Sales Insight Panel, where I was joined by a number of other ‘housing market veterans’, as one of the flyers for the conference rather unkindly put it. It was chaired by Russell Quirk (also off the telly), who did throw a few bombs, which thankfully I manged to avoid, although not everyone did. A write-up of this panel discussion can be found here from The Negotiator.
There were a number of keynote speakers throughout the day. Gerald Ratner did a run through his business success and failures and made you think that, as with Kipling, he treated both as imposters. Dame Kelly Holmes (the Olympic gold medallist) showed how her determination to succeed led to her success. It was really about pushing herself to improve continuously and not sitting in a comfort zone. A similar point was made by David Garland of Second Century Ventures when covering A1’s emerging role in UK Property, fusing it with quotes from David Bowie and 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as an entertaining conversation with a real AI bot on the conference floor, which promised it was not sentient (at least not yet).
The Bowie quote did resonate.
Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being. Go a little bit out of your depth and when you don't feel your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting.
Which is probably something we all need to do more of as the tides of the market shift in and out.