By Legal Futures’ Associate Redbrick Solutions
Property technology company Coadjute reports a significant rise in offers in the last week, alongside rises in registrations, sales enquires and viewings booked with estate agents. All point toward the continuing upwards trend in the property market, now rapidly filtering through to offer stage.
An industry group formed by Coadjute – the Blockchain leader in PropTech – of leading property software businesses, including Redbrick Solutions, suggests that the UK housing market is clearly recovering with residential property sales in offer stage up by 126% in week 21 of the estate agent calendar (18th to 23rd May 2020). This represents a 45% of the entire sales pipeline, versus 26% in the previous week. The data also indicates how the sales offer stage has overtaken the number of exchange and completion stages for the first time since lockdown with a combine figure of 55% of the total pipeline.
The analysis comes from Coadjute’s new Property Market Insights report, compiled with industry leaders including Dezrez, Legal Marketing Services, MRI Software, Reapit, Redbrick Solutions and Search Acumen, covering approximately 50% of UK estate agents and a material number of conveyancing firms. The new report is intended to provide unprecedented breadth and detail on every aspect of estate agent and conveyancer workflow from initial sales enquiries through to viewings, exchange and completion, and is designed to help property businesses align their operations as activity returns to the market.
Sales viewings booked last week were up by 111% and the number of registrations for property sales increased by 58% in the last week driving a flood of activity in the market. The number sales enquiries was up by 17% also in the last week exceeding the figures from week 9 (end of Feb) with enquires of up to 27% higher.
The number of exchanges was up by 41%, and the sales completion figures increased by 34%, demonstrating that cases that were put on hold through the lockdown, are now filtering through to the completion. With the demand for properties increasing, there is also an increasing number of properties being registered for sale up to 67% from last week. This activity is therefore seen in the conveyancing data with a rise on the number of cases listed and the number of quotes provided doubling over the last week.
Coadjute believes that the data is clearly showing both how the industry is adapting, and continuing signs of recovering in all aspects of the buying and selling process. It is still important to note that most of the totals remain below market norms.
Martin MacDuff, Managing Director at Redbrick Solutions said, “It’s essential to the UK economy that the housing market with all its facets gets moving again as soon as possible. We’re proud to be working with Coadjute and keen to do what we can to assist a positive and successful return to business as normal”.
Dan Salmons, CEO at Coadjute says “This report shows how rapidly the housing market is now returning. In a week when the UK Government called for the use of digital tools in the property market to get the economy going, we applaud how rapidly estate agents and other parties are adopting new digital approaches to make this possible. Our mission at Coadjute is to help the property market transform digitally, and we welcome the housing minister’s encouragement to use blockchain technologies to accelerate the process”.
Analysis of data over the coming weeks will inform whether this is a ‘short-lived rebound in house-hunter demand in the early stages post-lockdown’ as speculated in the media, or something more sustained. In any event, the strong week-on-week gains are a very welcome, positive step towards normal market levels.
