Summer holidays are now in full swing after term ending last week but how does the Bath property market look as buckets and spades are being brought out ready for beach days? Has the recent turbulence in the mortgage market had an effect?
National summer overview –
The first five months of the year were surprisingly strong in results terms but summer sales have been harder to come by due to unexpectedly stubborn inflation figures and the surprise of further mortgage rate rises. However, Rightmove reports buyer demand remains resilient at 3% above 2019’s more normal market levels, buoyed by a shortage of quality property for sale and ongoing housing needs. There has also been some positive news more recently with inflation figures and less volatility with swap rates which may serve to reassure lenders into reducing pricing. May’s UK HPI data (released last week) shows average UK house prices stood at £286,000 in May 2023 – £6,000 higher than 12 months ago, but £7,000 below the recent peak in September 2022.
Local summer focus –
Bath shares the same national supply issues as you can see from the below graph tracking “on market” numbers since before the pandemic.
Selling times are at very tolerable summer levels, not quite the speediness peak of mid 2022 but still considerably faster than most monthly averages across 2019 – 2021.
No real change to the shape of the market in property type terms.
As always, we have collected our usual range of Bath property statistics and this summer’s raw stats are compared against our archive data from July 2022 (in red)
Total property on market in Bath
Rightmove – 650 vs 402
Zoopla – 403 vs 332
OnTheMarket – 242 vs 140
Home.co.uk – 672 vs 415
New Instructions in last 14 days
Rightmove – 165 vs 129
Zoopla – 70 vs 77
OnTheMarket – search option not available
Home.co.uk – 99 vs 85
Average Time on Market
Less than 1 month – 27% vs 37.5%
Less than 2 months – 47% vs 53.9%
More than 1 year – 8% vs 13.2%
Selling Time in Bath (last 90 days)
Mean – 103 days vs 90 days
Median – 36 days vs 23 days
Properties for Sale in Bath by Price
Under 200k – 4% vs 6.5%
200k to 300k – 15% vs 15.6%
300k to 500k – 33% vs 33%
500k+ – 46% vs 44.8%
Median Selling Times in Bath by property type
Flats – 54 days
Terraced – 28 days
Semi-detached – 28 days
Detached – 38 days
Property on market by Type
Flats – 44% vs 48%
Terraced – 21% vs 20.4%
Semi-detached – 19% vs 19.9%
Detached – 13% vs 11.7%
