Estate Agents, Valuers & Surveyors in London

An increase in purchasers and a shortage of stock has lead to over 100 sealed bids across our London offices already this year. It comes as no surprise then, that we are seeing more and more situations of ‘gazumping’, a phenomenon that contrary to popular belief, is NOT advocated by Estate Agents.

Gazumping, is when a seller accepts a higher offer from a buyer, despite having already accepted an offer from another purchaser. This can be very frustrating for the ‘gazumpee’, who in some cases, will have already committed financially to legal fees and surveys, as well as the emotional attachment to buying a new home.

However, as the law currently stands, if an agent receives an increased offer at any time prior to an exchange of contracts, they are legally obliged to submit the offer to their clients. In actual fact, it is a criminal offence not to do so, not just a civil offence which would be bad enough.

Welcome to the latest Marsh & Parsons video blog giving an overview of the summer market and going forward, an insight into how we see the re-growth of the London property market over the next few months.

To summarise; market activity has picked up considerably, with double the amount of buyers registering in August compared to the same period last year (over 1,000!). Contrary to popular belief, there is actually plenty of cash around, with owners and investors alike looking to put their money back into property. Mortgage lending is starting to gain momentum, although there is still a long way to go, and this is helping the first-time buyer end of the market. Although stock is still a problem, we’re seeing a firm “bounce back” of the London property market which, barring any nasty surprises, we anticipate continuing for the remainder of this year and into 2010.

The last few months have been an exciting time to be involved with the selling of property in London. Having experienced some 18 months of falling prices, in February, we consider that the bottom of the market in London was reached and at the time we were confident of a gradual return to a more stable property market with an eye on sustainable long term growth in both capital values and rental returns and to a large extent this still rings true. However, what has surprised us somewhat is the robust, even dramatic recovery in prices in the Capital, in some cases, in some areas close to their ‘peak’ values.

Prices had fallen extremely rapidly and therefore I suppose it’s not such a surprise that they seem to have rebounded quite so quickly in London. Consider that in the last major recession from 1989-1993, property prices dwindled by 20-25% over a four year period and this time they fell in many cases by 30% in an 18 month period.