Home sellers rush to offload homes before house prices drop, as surplus for sale stock levels soar

The latest market insight by property purchasing specialist, House Buyer Bureau, has revealed that while the market has started to cool where buyer demand is concerned, home sellers are still rushing to list their homes, with this surplus of for sale stock likely to hasten the rate at which house prices are declining across the property market. 

The latest UK House Price Index revealed that house prices hit a brick wall in September, with the monthly rate of growth stalling at 0%. At the same time, the level of buyers entering the market is also on the decline, with mortgage approvals falling by -3.8% in the last six months and -7.3% annually.

However, the latest market analysis by House Buyer Bureau has revealed that the number of homes reaching the market for sale across Britain has actually increased, up 16% versus six months ago. 

This suggests that home sellers have continued to head to market in the hopes of securing a buyer before the current market decline worsens and the value of their home drops. However, in doing so, they could not only be contributing to a cooling market, but hastening the rate at which house prices fall due to an imbalance between decreasing buyer demand and a surplus of for sale stock. 

At a regional level, it’s the East of England that has seen the largest uplift in surplus for sale stock, with 23% more homes entering the market for sale now versus six months ago. The North West and Wales have also seen a notable increase at 21%, followed by the East and West Midlands at 18% and 16% respectively. 

At city level, there are 113% more homes being listed for sale across Leeds versus the level seen back in July of this year, with Liverpool (31%), Nottingham (27%), Leicester (26%) and Manchester (23%) also seeing some of the largest uplifts in homes heading to market. 

Managing Director of House Buyer Bureau, Chris Hodgkinson, commented:

‘“We’ve seen numerous indicators that the market is running low on steam but this is yet to deter the nation’s home sellers, who have continued to flood the market to an even greater extent than six months ago when the pandemic property market boom was still in full swing. 

Of course, many are doing so in hopes of securing a buyer before the current cool in the rate of house price growth materialises into an actual decline. However, we’ve already seen the level of buyers entering the market start to dwindle as a result of increasing mortgage costs and so they may well find it tougher than expected to secure an offer on their home.

So not only are we seeing more homes listed for sale, but there’s also less buyers looking to purchase and when you consider these two factors together, the likelihood is that this surplus for sale stock will actually help accelerate a drop in house prices.”