Winter Weather Brings Chill to Hammersmith Property Market

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Sales at half previous levels show buyers have stayed at home

The freezing winter weather brought a chill to Hammersmith’s property market, with buyers deciding to stay at home. The latest official figures show a sharp decline in activity, with only 68 properties sold in the W6 postcode area in the first three months of 2013. This is around half the level of turnover seen a decade ago, and also well down on the 90 sold in the last quarter of 2012.

Prices also appeared to be drifting lower between January and March with the average for W6 down by 5.8% to £618,555.

The average price of terraced houses slumped under the million mark, dropping by 7.1% from £1,074,336 to £997,733, though the low number of homes changing hands played its part in this. In Hammersmith’s priciest area, W6 7 - around Brook Green - no houses at all changed in 2013’s first quarter, while in the last quarter of 2012, five houses were sold with an average price of £1,530,000.

There were also better news for residents of W6 9, the area close to the river south of King Street, where the average property price rose from £782, 500 to £949,442 - though this was from sales of only seven homes.

Flats and maisonettes fared better than houses, with the average price showing only a small slip of .8% from £415, 235 to £411,730, but once again the number actually sold dropped from 57 to 44.

Alex Maile of local agents Lawson Rutter says on his blog he noticed that activiity was low for early spring, but adds that things are now back on the up." It seems that the usual hustle and bustle of March has been merely delayed," he says. "Suddenly buyers and sellers alike are coming into the market and creating as busy a market as we have seen for five years.

" There seems to be an inescapable correlation between peoples’ enthusiasm to move and the weather. Until now one of the issues has been the continued lack of available properties but I suspect that as the weather improves so do peoples’ outlook and their desire to implement lifestyle changes, and this is the key.

"As much as everyone wants to buy or sell at the 'right price' I can’t help but feel that people are influenced not by financial data or interest rates but by the longer days and the optimism that Spring brings."

The March data from Land Registry's House Price Index shows that London remains the best performing property market in England and Wales. The average price of a home in the capital rose by 9.6% over the year to £374,568.

For the country as a whole prices only rose by 0.% which takes the average property value in England and Wales to £161,793. London has seen a rise in repossessions which were up by 28% in January 2013 compared with the same month in 2012.

A detail listing of properties sold recently in the area will be appearing in a forthcoming edition of the Hammersmith newsletter.

 

Hammersmith Property Prices (January - March 2013)
Area	Terraced	Sales	Flat/Mais	Sales	Total Averages	Total Sales
W6 0	1156409	11	427853	16	724672	27
W6 7	0	0	437863	11	437863	11
W6 8	763166	6	392070	14	503399	20
W6 9	949442	7	321666	3	761109	10
Total	997733	24	411730	44	618555	68
Last quarter	-7.1%	-27.3%	-0.8%	-22.8%	-5.8%	-24.4%
Last year	-5.3%	0.0%	18.1%	-27.9%	10.6%	-22.7%
Last three years	11.6%	-45.5%	23.8%	-6.4%	2.4%	-25.3%
Last five years	14.2%	-11.1%	5.3%	-29.0%	15.1%	-23.6%
Last ten years	121.3%	-52.9%	70.1%	-45.7%	91.7%	-48.5%

 

Hammersmith Property Prices - October to December 2012
Area	Terraced	Sales	Flat/Mais	Sales	Total Averages	Total Sales
W6 0	1166562	16	426020	25	715012	41
W6 7	1530000	5	485400	10	833600	15
W6 8	751014	8	369690	10	539167	18
W6 9	782500	4	372250	12	474813	16
Total	1074336	33	415235	57	656906	90
Last quarter	-14.6%	-23.3%	3.9%	-16.2%	-11.8%	-21.1%
Last year	52.5%	-17.5%	10.7%	-39.4%	33.0%	-35.3%
Last three years	25.9%	17.9%	34.4%	3.6%	33.3%	8.4%
Last five years	29.0%	-8.3%	21.6%	-44.1%	34.5%	-36.2%
Last ten years	120.4%	-40.0%	74.1%	-52.5%	107.4%	-48.6%

 

 

 

Source: Land Registry

 

May 17, 2013