With Brexit limping towards another delayed deadline for completion early next year, the white elephant in the property world is almost certainly:
“Is Brexit affecting buying and selling?”
In our team’s experience here in the borough of Bromley, it’s been a real mixture of conversations on this subject that we’ve had with friends, potential clients and acquaintances, all of whom have made noises about possibly moving house “soon”.
“Soon” at the moment appears to be a pseudonym for “let’s see what happens with this Brexit malarkey” and as estate agents we totally understand people’s concerns (and are watching and waiting in many ways ourselves).
Over the past year or so we’ve tended to have people in two camps.
The first is the camp of “sod it, let’s go on the market regardless, we want to move for X, Y, Z reasons so let’s do it anyway”. These people haven’t tended to be so worried about property prices dropping too drastically whatever happens, and usually have particular reasons for wanting to sell up, or indeed, buy.
The other camp is of the (understandably) more cautious variety, wanting to buy a new place, and/or put their property on the market but worried that once a deal (or no-deal) is done, then the property value may plummet (our view on this, in our area, is that it’s unlikely).
It’s been interesting as agents to talk to people on both sides of the spectrum, as the market has been a little slower than usual, but fortunately nothing too worrying. We have daily enquiries from people who want to get moving but have been frustrated by the overall fewer number of properties available, but equally people looking to sell for a fair price, but there aren’t enough buyers out there due to prospective ones heeding caution.
From our perspective if you’re looking to sell and then buy, price-wise you really shouldn’t be affected much whatever happens with Brexit- you may sell for slightly less than at the height of say, 2016, but if you’re wanting to buy that next-step property then the chances are you’ll be able to get that for a relative price now too (plus lower prices mean lower stamp duty!).
These are our thoughts and conversations with various people over the past several months, but we’d love to hear your views too. Has Brexit stopped you from putting your property on the market? Are you unsure about taking the plunge and buying? Let us know in the comments below…
