H&H Land & Estates Valuer Grace Oakey reports a tale of two halves in Penrith property sales pending the imminent election. Sellers in the higher end of the market are waiting to see the outcome, but first time buyers are pressing on.
“The first-time buyers’ market in the Penrith area is moving the most at the moment, with anything up to about £300k selling well, and we have sold eight properties in this range within the last two weeks through our Penrith office.
Although the looming election is clearly having an impact on the higher end of the market, we are still noticing a lot of activity in terms of viewings and offers. The effect of the election on the top end of the market appears to be making buyers hang fire, but not because of a loss of confidence. Both buyers and sellers are waiting to see the outcome, and there are plenty of higher end properties waiting to come to the market at the end of July and the beginning of August.
Overall, there is a real buzz in our office. We are very busy, and we’re looking forward to being even busier with the sale of larger properties in the next couple of months. We have two very exciting lifestyle properties coming to the market with a couple of acres; rural properties, especially here in the Lake District and surrounding areas, will always be in demand. We have several big properties in the pipeline, so my advice to buyers seeking the right property is to get in touch with your agents as there is such a significant demand.
Key advice for first time buyers is to get in touch with a mortgage broker before viewing houses so you’re fully proceedable. With interest remaining relatively high, many people come and view and then find that they can’t get the mortgage level that they were hoping for.
For any potential buyers, it’s important to keep an open dialogue with us, because there are sellers keen to sell. We often find buyers are reluctant to get in touch as they don’t want to put in an offer that might disgruntle the seller, but if there is an open dialogue we can always see if negotiations might be possible.
We are just about to complete on a property that we didn’t even bring to the market, so there are off-market sales happening, and when buyers register their interest with us, we can put buyers and sellers together.
We are here to hold buyers and sellers’ hands and can point them in the right direction before selling and buying. We work with may local contractors from cleaners to removals and are here to provide a whole package, we don’t just sell homes.”