Housing supply falls in 81% of areas as sellers stick

Coupled with Brexit fears, the data shows that homeowners chose to stick rather than sell and price growth stalled in many areas.

81% of areas saw property supply fall in June compared to May. Dundee and Barnsley registered the biggest drop offs in property supply, down 48.1% and 39.3% last month. Of the few areas that saw a rise in new listings in June, Lichfield and Hartlepool registered substantial gains of 20.6% and 18.7% respectively.

London also bucked the trend, with property supply up 5.3% across the boroughs. Sutton stood out with new property listings in June up by more than half (54.1%) compared to May.

Alex Gosling, CEO of online estate agents House Simple, commented: “The supply drought continues. The property market was hoping for a downpour of new stock in June, but the Conservatives crawling over the line failed to deliver the injection of confidence the market needed, and put paid to any chance of a late Spring bounce. Price growth has stalled, and sellers, it appears, are choosing to stay put, rather than accept marketing their properties at a lower price then they might have done a few months ago.

“Sellers maybe need a dose of reality, because price growth slowing should not be the only reason to hold-off moving. The housing market overheated and it was inevitably going to cool at some point. If sellers are waiting for prices to go up again, that could be a long wait. If anything, homeowners should see this as a good climate to sell as long as they price correctly. If prices have dropped where they live, they are likely to have dropped, possibly by even more, in the area they’re planning to buy.”