The monthly report produced by UK portal giant Rightmove has, for the second month running, not been able to give an accurate picture of seller asking price due to a lack of properties coming to market. Instead, the portal company has used this month’s report to paint a picture of how the nascent post-lockdown market may take shape.
According to the report, there are some very encouraging signs that the underlying market forces that characterised the buoyant pre-pandemic market are still in play. Among these are figures from the portal last week as the UK government opened up the English housing market.
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Rightmove traffic regained pre-lockdown levels on Wednesday 13th May with almost 5.2 million visits, up 4% on the same day a year ago
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Unique enquiries doubled from Tuesday to Wednesday last week, and were only 10% behind the same day in 2019
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Rental demand also surged with the highest unique enquiries in one day since September 2019
According to company spokesman, Miles Shipside: “The traditionally busy spring market was curtailed by lockdown, but we’re now seeing clear signs of returning momentum, with the existing desire to move now being supplemented by some people’s unhappiness with their lockdown home and surroundings.”
Certainly, the traffic and enquiries stats represent very encouraging signs for the housing market and we wait optimistically for other portals to release similar numbers in the coming months.