The housing market is behaving just as erratically as the unseasonal weather. Those snow flurries in the capital last week reflected the chills being felt at the top end of the prime sector, especially properties on the market for £3m-£16m. Grainne Gilmore, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank estate agency, reported that prime central London (PCL) prices in March were unchanged month on month, and have risen by just 0.8% over the past year.
This average — as averages tend to do — masks a divide. Values fell by 6.8% in Knightsbridge, while those in the City are up by 8.1% — so, for the first time, the agency has split its forecast into East PCL and West PCL. Meanwhile, Foxtons estate agency, that bellwether of optimism, last week warned that house sales may fall in the run-up to the EU referendum.
Indeed, the Brexit defence has turned out to be rather handy for estate agents. I hear that some of the swankier national chains are cutting their fees back to 1% as Londoners sit and wait for the outcome of both the mayoral election and the vote on whether or not we remain in Europe.
According to Ladbrokes’ Brexit Barometer (ladbrokes. com/referendum), there is currently a 29% chance of a Leave vote. The bookmaker is also offering odds of 3-1 against a fall in house prices by the end of the year; with a rise of 0 to 1% at 9-4; a rise of 1% to 2.5% at 2-1; a rise of 2.5% to 5% at 9-4; and a rise of more than 5% available at 4-1.
“These odds suggest the referendum is giving way to an incredibly volatile second half to the year,” says the Ladbrokes spokesman Alex Donohue. “The Brexit odds correlate strongly to a drop in prices or a much slower rate of growth than anticipated. Likewise, you’ll see that the odds of a 5%-plus surge have shortened, as a resounding Remain win could send prices soaring again.”
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• Take the temperature of the housing market around the rest of Britain and, barring a few commutable locations where prices are buoyed by London-based purchasers, it is all rather lukewarm. Indeed, pity the reader who wrote to tell me that he is now on his third agent in 12 months, and still struggling to sell his four-bedroom, two-bathroom converted Methodist chapel in West Yorkshire. It’s nice enough inside — and he has reduced the price from £350,000 to £280,000-£320,000.
Generally, that’s the only thing you can do — though he admits that when he went to the local GP’s surgery for the results of a blood test, the nurse told him of another seller who had four viewings on the first day and had accepted a cash offer by teatime. “That didn’t do much for my blood pressure,” the reader says — and I am as baffled as he as to why his lovely home isn’t selling.
Yet Andrew McPhillips, chief economist of the Yorkshire Building Society, believes that many of us will use this sluggish market as an opportunity to “snap up homes they would otherwise have had to compete with overseas investors for”. Of course, they will still need to come up with a deposit, raise a mortgage — and, I now suggest, haggle for a decent discount.
• One ray of sunshine: the tulips I planted last autumn have bloomed and are valiantly withstanding the wind; the snowdrops and daffodils, however, failed to come out, as they were dug up by cats (you know how I feel about them) and possibly munched by squirrels. As with struggling vendors, it is a case of better luck next year.
• Finally, a question — as an avid viewer, if not a connoisseur, of crime dramas. Why do coppers on television seem to live in really, really nice houses?
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Tell me what you think @TheSTHome or helen.davies@sunday-times.co.uk