The UK housing market experienced an influx of new properties on the market during July, property website Rightmove announced.
In a period usually characterised by a slump in sales due to seasonal patterns, the increase in supply in properties on the market has helped to keep prices at a stable level. Rightmove also stated that the abundance of supply has seen the greatest quantity of stock for the UK housing market since September 2015.
Robust Housing Data
The number of properties being offered by Rightmove, the single biggest property website in the UK, is significantly greater than at the same time last year.
The quantity of housing being advertised is 8.6 per cent greater than July of last year, but this has had very little effect on the number of sales being carried out by Rightmove, with only a 0.2 per cent decrease from this time last year.
Moreover, the average asking prices for new sellers in the UK housing market are only down by 0.1 per cent since June, a seasonal trend that fits into line with expectations.
Expectations Lowering
However, 2018 has seen the greatest proportion of property price drops from the initial asking price since 2011, a fact that Rightmove said indicated that sellers already on the books had priced their properties too highly.
So far this year, at least a third of all property stocks on Rightmove’s books have seen at least one price reduction, a trend that suggests the UK housing market is not in entirely good health.
This suggestion is bolstered by data from other industry players, which has catalogued a sharp slump in the growth of UK house prices since the result of the June 2016 Brexit referendum.
The overall decrease in UK house price growth has shown regional variation, with the Greater London area being the worst affected.