Not all Zoom and Gloom……

It’s a surreal experience walking around Port Solent at the moment, whilst daily exercising as part of the current lockdown guidance. The Marina would typically see an increase in footfall with the improved weather; restaurants and bars would routinely be dusting down the exterior furniture in anticipation of the peak season.  Instead, the carpark is practically empty and Port Solent feels like a vacant scene from a Zombie apocalypse film.

Fortunately, these observations do not tell the true story, as it has been a real pleasure seeing and hearing residents of Port Solent pulling together to help the local and wider community through this very difficult time. We have been amazed but not surprised by the amount of positive posts and videos shared on social media demonstrating that Port Solent is a great place to live, made great by the people that live here. Having spent the last few weeks in lockdown in Port Solent, two of our clients in Port Solent have realised how great the Marina is to live and as such have removed their property from the sales market altogether.

Since lockdown we have been inundated with messages of support and questions about what we think the housing market is likely to do. Ultimately, we will not know properly until 3 to 6 months after lockdown has been lifted, but there are encouraging and positive signs that it might not be as bad as some ‘experts’ are predicting……. after all, those of you who have spoken to us about the Marina will know that Port Solent doesn’t follow the usual market patterns and trends.

Despite our office being closed, we remain quite busy and have still managed to move key workers into some of our vacant properties to help the NHS combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, we are seeing a similar pattern of events to the rest of the UK with regards to the sales side of our business. The only actual cause of this is due to the restrictions on physical viewings on properties.

We have always had a strong belief that the industry would evolve as the population became more reliant on accessing almost everything online and with the emergence of virtual technologies, webinars, podcasts, new social media platforms to name a few, it would appear that this pandemic might be the catalyst for the business evolution!

You may have seen back in early March that we started uploading video tours on the vacant sales and rental properties that we have had access to, to combat the ban on physical viewings and since creating our own video page we have had over 560 views and have sold and let 5 properties (STC) solely via video. We are currently exploring other initiatives that we believe will keep us ahead of the competition.

The volume of views on our YouTube channel is encouraging and based on market analysts, they believe there is a large amount of the population looking to purchase a property once the current Covid-19 situation is resolved. The main portals reported record numbers of potential buyers viewing property details online in January and February in the UK. One portal recorded 150 million views across all the properties available on its site during this period.

This traffic was mainly caused by the general election results with buyers’ confidence in the market increasing and we know that not everyone managed to purchase a property before Covid-19 hit the UK. 

Based on this we believe that there will be a surge on viewings across all our rental and sales properties once lockdown has been lifted but there will be restrictions on how the viewings will be allowed to be conducted.

Lockdown will also have an effect on new properties coming to the market with experts predicting people needing to move due to a baby boom or indeed, couples separating – direct life events affected by lockdown.  Analysts are also predicting that some families are using the time in lockdown to re-evaluate their life; work and home which will also bring about a different buyer to the market. 

We hope mortgage rates remain low to help the housing market recover and there are rumours that the government may be looking into other initiatives to stoke the recovery. Lenders are showing more caution and have removed a lot of their mortgage products from the market, particularly those with a high loan to value (LTV).

New mortgage applications on newly purchased properties has dropped to unprecedented levels, remortgage applications on existing properties have increased with Buy to Let mortgages being the most popular. 1.6 million people have taken mortgage holidays since Covid-19, saving the average household approximately £755 per month.

Mortgage approvals for house purchase slumped to a 7 year low in March as social distancing measures hit. A total of 56,161 loans were agreed for people buying a home in March, the lowest level since 2013. The slump comes after mortgage approvals for house purchases hit a 5 year high in February 2020.

Lockdown has also caused around 373,000 property sales in the UK to stall due to varying factors including most removal firms not working, surveyors unable to visit properties to value them and lenders having furloughed a lot of their admin teams, so the paperwork side of things is becoming held up. Most lenders have however increased the expiry dates on their products by 3 months to allow for the delays and allowing virtual valuations on low risk property sales.

We are predicting that cash rich buyers will be using their position to pick up ‘bargains’ where sellers are desperate to sell following redundancies, deaths and divorces/separations.

As previously mentioned, despite the situation we all find ourselves in, there are a few positives specifically related to the housing market in Port Solent and here are just a few of them:

• The average house price in Port Solent has risen in the last 18 months by £33,000, which is an increase of 7.3%

• 75% of the properties sold in Port Solent in 2019 were sold to purchasers for the purpose of being their main residence.

• Rent arrears on our managed properties sits at just 2% since Covid-19

• The installation of the sound barriers should slightly increase the value of properties on the North side of Tintagel Way, Coverack Way, Mullion Close and Newlyn Way.

We would be interested to hear from anyone who has had their moving plans directly altered by the effects of Covid-19, both negative and positive to give us a better understanding and in turn, potentially help others.  When all is said and done, despite all the changes the pandemic has brought about, our sole aim is and always will be to help people move.

Housing Gloom or Housing Boom? We will be doing everything in our power to make it a housing boom; after all, there are ample indicators for us to make this happen!  

Marina & Hampshire Life Homes

11 The Boardwalk, Port Solent, Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO6 4TP

Sales & Lettings e-mail: info@marinalifehomes.co.uk Telephone: 02392 373446