Almost three-quarters of property professionals are confident that 2024 market conditions will be on par with those experienced in 2023, according to a poll commissioned by Countrywide Surveying Services.
More of the same then. The rather gloomy prediction emerged at Countrywide Surveying Services’ regular webinar series, using the halfway point of 2023 as an ideal time to take stock of what’s happened so far this year and discuss the future.
Additionally, 24% of respondents were ‘not confident’ that conditions in 2024 would be more favourable than those in 2023 with 3% going even further and forecasting that they will be ‘much worse’.
Over 300 lenders, brokers, surveyors and other property professionals actively engaged with the session which also revealed that at least 40% of property professionals are ‘mildly confident’ that 2024 will be better than 2023 with 6% saying that they are ‘very confident’ this would be the case.
The panel included Graham Sellar, Head of Business Development - Mortgages, Santander UK, Tim Bannister, Director of Property Science Innovation, Rightmove plc, Terry Higgins, Group Managing Director, New Build Mortgage Services and Jonathan Stinton, Head of Intermediary Relationships, Coventry Building Society and was hosted by John Baguley, Director of Technical, Risk and Compliance at Countrywide Surveying Services.
How does the rest of 2023 look?
A further poll taken during the webinar asked how hopeful attendees are for the rest of 2023.
According to the results, 48% were ‘mildly pessimistic’ and 24% ‘mildly hopeful’. 21% reported being ‘neither hopeful nor pessimistic’, 4% were ‘pessimistic’ with 2% ‘very hopeful’.
Attendees were also asked – what proportion of your property investor clients have either sold up entirely, sold some of their properties or are seeking to do so in the next 12 months?
The results showed that 45% found this to be the case for less than 25% of their property investor clients. 35% reported this to be the case for between 25-50% of their property investor clients, 18% for between 50-75% of their property investor clients and 2% for over 75% of their property investor clients.
The biggest challenges facing any new government?
A final poll posed this multiple-choice question and revealed that interest rates being over 5% clearly topped the responses with an overwhelming 71%.
This was followed by a housing shortage (to buy or rent) at 39%, enabling FTBs to buy (26%), building the amount and type of properties required (25%), making it attractive again to be a private landlord (19%) and enabling empty nesters and the retired to downsize (10%).
John Baguley, Countrywide Surveying Services, commented: “The results of these polls are indicative of current market sentiment, economic uncertainty and the impact of rising interest rates. However, what we can glean from this highly interesting and informative discussion is just how robust the mortgage and housing markets are, despite experiencing huge amounts of pressure from various directions over the course of the past 12 months.
“A plentiful amount of enthusiasm and positive energy still courses through the industry, with many businesses and individuals working extremely hard to deliver a range of innovative solutions to help overcome some of the obvious challenges we are likely to experience in H2 2023 and beyond.”