Realistic Expectation is Picking Up the Market

After a deluge of media coverage concerning the fall in house prices and over the winter, Amanda Clarke, Conveyancer at Eric Robinson Solicitors in Hythe, is now welcoming the early signs of a recovering property market.

As Spring arrives with warmer weather and longer days, it has been with much relief that we have seen the first green shoots of the housing market beginning to rise. Fellow conveyancers and estate agents may think that I am jinxing these early steps towards a more favourable situation by writing about them, but I think it is only right that if the public has been bombarded with depressing details of our difficulties in tough times, that we let them know when things are getting better.

Here at Eric Robinson Solicitors in Hythe, a place where I grew up and have family, there has been a significant increase in the number of conveyancing matters we have been asked to take on. Some say it is as a result of optimism brought on by the return of the sunshine, but I believe there are more practical reasons for the change.

I think that those who have been observing the housing market over the last few months have rationalised the situation in their minds and become more pragmatic. People have realised that if the value of the house they wish to sell has dropped (and arguably become more realistic) then so will the value of the house they wish to buy, thereby recouping their perceived loss from the sale.

The realisation that there are now ‘deals to be done’ has seen the return of investors who are understandably putting more faith in property than banking institutions and despite recent bad press, we are finding that financial companies are prepared to lend money - some mortgage offers are indeed a lot more attractive after the dramatic fall in interest rates.

We have welcomed back the first time buyers, some of whom may have had to find larger deposits by turning to parents who understand the importance of enabling their children to get on the property ladder and, at the end of the day, sometimes it isn’t a question of people wanting to move, they have to.