Market Update for Bushey for June 2021

With the June Stamp Duty Holiday deadline behind us, our Bushey Branch Manager Joe Masterson takes a look back at the local market over the last month.

IMPORTANT STATS
5 Star customer service award for four years in a row
Average sale price circa £600,000
Viewings circa 140 per month

The market in Bushey has remained extremely hot in the last three months.

When working with the seller it is common to include some ‘optimism’ in the initial marketing price certainly for the first few weeks to see the reception from the market. Despite this, we are still seeing properties comfortably securing at or even above their asking prices within days or in some cases hours.

This has been driven by a slightly reduced stock portfolio (but nothing significantly different to other years) and a far more ‘let’s get on with it’ attitude from buyers.

Buyers seem to be concerned about missing out on properties and rather than coming second place again they seem to be making extremely compelling offers to sellers right from day one. Combine this with the market warping stamp duty concession and the prices have stayed ‘pushed’.

We have also been strict with applicant positions making sure they are proceedable. Despite this viewing levels are still at a record high but it has helped securing prices as we are only out of the office with people in a position to make a decision. Had we been booking viewings for just anyone who wanted to view we likely would have conducted circa 2,000 viewings this year many of which would have been redundant.

Bushey still has a village feel and many people move from Bushey to Bushey so offering a great service and strong communication is key to continuing repeat business year after year.

In Bushey we specialise in second hand residential sales and lettings but will always assist/point a seller in the right direction with any type of property need they have.

Although the stamp duty concession is soon to end there is no obvious let up in the keenness of buyers.

New instructions we are bringing to the market continue to have a typical 7-10-day period before going under offer even when buyers are made aware that there is no realistic prospect of hitting the stamp duty deadline.

This is a marked change from February when buyers seemed more cautious citing that they wanted to see what was going to happen after the stamp duty went back to normal. We are not hearing this same messaging now which should lead to a positive second half of 2021.

Indeed, with the lack of holidays likely taking place in 2021 there should be no Summer slump in activity which is typical in regular calendar cycles.