Well, what a year 2020 has been! Putting all things COVID aside, the property market has grown exponentially and exceeded all predictions.
Since lockdown began, home improvement has surged and with that, the process of preparing the home for sale has been streamlined. In addition, the demand for a home office has increased due to the number of people working from home – let’s face it, working from the dining table has its limits.
There is no doubt that the stamp duty holiday has had a huge impact on the surge of transactions during this year. In addition, property prices have increased during 2020 by 7.6% on average (source: Halifax).
Unlike ‘normal’ years, the property market tends to slow during the run-up to Christmas and this year has been exceptional with October being reported as breaking records for the number of prospective buyers.
Zoopla expects 2020 to end with 1.1m home transactions.
Property professionals are predicting that buying and selling is likely to continue at strong levels into the New Year as the stamp duty holiday resumes. There is likely to be a slowdown in the market once this comes to an end in March but there is still a possibility that this may be extended.
It is, without doubt, one of the best times to buy or sell (or improve and add value to) property and if you have the opportunity to do so, it certainly continues to be a worthwhile journey to explore.
What about property developers?
As you would expect, property developers have been silently upping their game and carefully watching the market as it has continued to go from strength to strength over recent months.
Here at Fibre Architects, we have come across and helped to review a number of openings for our developer clients in recent months, with a variety of potential development sites and properties coming to or about to come to market.
This is a significant part of our business and we are regularly keeping an eye out for good quality development opportunities, both new-build and conversions.
Do get in touch if you have any pending project ideas, plots or potential development sites that you would like to explore further.
