BREAKING NEWS – 5 top stories 29/01/2021

NEW INSTRUCTIONS AT A SEASONAL LOW

Typically instructions start to come to the market from the second week of January, this trend has not occurred in 2021. Many agents are now scratching around for inventory to let and sell. One agent contacted today confirmed that fees were under huge pressure as the local agents were fighting for a dwindling share of a shrinking market.

When asked why things were so quiet, they replied, ‘Some now understand there is only nine weeks to the SDLT holiday deadline, others are afraid to contemplate marketing with such high levels of Covid-19 infections, and maybe it is the steam coming out of what has been a very buoyant market’. In my own village there are now only two detached properties for sale in a three-mile radius – now that is a seriously low amount of inventory.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND – COULD THE INTEREST RATE GO NEGATIVE?

With so many bumps in the road, and news soundbites assailing us almost hourly, there seems to be growing sentiment according to banking insiders that if Lockdown 3.0 continues for a prolonged period – the present 0.1% base rate might become a negative figure.

This might seem unlikely to many, but with continued Quantitative easing and the printing of huge amounts of virtual money, banks were approached recently to get the feel of sentiment within the fiscal community. If the base rate were to dip, this would of course impact on savers, but also of course on the housing market in general.

HELP TO BUY 2021 STYLE COMES INTO BEING IN JUST OVER TWO MONTHS

From April, the old-style Help to Buy scheme which utilises a government backed loan to help buyers acquire a more expensive property, will end. Under its new rendition only First time Buyers will be able to use the scheme, which may well slow some sectors of the housing sector down, especially National Homebuilders who have utilised the scheme with multi-million-pound advantages.

REACH UK 2020 SCALE UP PROGRAMME – COMPANIES ABOUT TO BE ANNOUNCED

The names of the successful entrants to the very first REACH UK 2020 scale up programme will be announced early next week. Reach UK the commercial/developmental arm of the National association of Realtors, headed up by Valentina Shegoyan and Natasha Terinova will be making public the handful of successful tech companies that made the final cut out of the hundreds under consideration.

As a REACH 2020 Cohort mentor myself, I wish all those involved in this extremely worthwhile enterprise all success in the coming months.

OVER 80,000 IT COULD BE YOU

As we go into the weekend ahead of the parliamentary debate on whether the SDLT holiday should be extended, it is estimated that up to 100,000 property transactions may overshoot the completion deadline of the 31^st of March, with the most conservative number being as high as 80,000. Indications are that a temporary one month extension may be on the cards, but that it would be announced at the time of the March budget.

How will Help to Buy 2021-2023 work?

From April 2021 Help to Buy — which uses government loans to supplement buyers’ deposits and mortgages — will only be offered to first-time buyers.

If you have a view – please let us all know by emailing me at [email protected] – Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward.