To call 2016 an interesting year in the property market probably sounds like an understatement. Brexit, a loosened monetary policy, a base rate at 0.25%, and another round of quantitative easing all influencing customer confidence.

Then we’ve had confused mortgage markets, with cheap money, but increased rates a strong possibility and also the prospect of inflation influencing affordability as wage rises aren’t likely to keep pace.

We’ve seen a highly troubled London property market that inevitably extends its influence to all local markets within an hour’s commute of the capital. The London influence has been a double edge sword with many now accepting that they won’t benefit from significant price growth on their London homes so are taking the opportunity to sell up and make that long overdue move into commuting country or further afield with lifestyle changes too. Others are finding that their confidence in the market is at a low ebb and this tends to create lethargy.

We’ve witnessed an unprecedented link between political stability and financial stability. Despite a robustly performing London Stock Exchange we have seen a weakened pound, which then strengthens on the news of European political instability in Italy.

We’ve seen the election of Donald Trump…. draw your own conclusions about that one and potential effects on world financial and property markets…

And despite all the turmoil and the fact that we have witnessed plunging share prices in major property firms and estate agents reporting catastrophic market performance, Fisher German agency teams can report a surprisingly robust 2016 performance….

So what’s in store for us in 2017?       

We all know that the property market runs on sentiment, it runs on confidence in a stable economic future, but it also runs on the needs of families to expand and ‘trade up’, of grandparents trading down, of people re-locating for work reasons, and not to put too fine a point on it, on death, marriage and divorce. Against this background we predict a stable market and another decent year of trading, we would encourage those thinking of making a move to do so earlier in the year rather than later. Our big lesson from 2016 is that you can’t take anything for granted but no matter how testing the economic or political environment, the property market marches on

For further information contact:

Stuart Flint on 07501 720422 or email here

Alasdair Dunne on 07501 720412 or email here