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Stoke Newington and N16 Property Market Update
September feels rather more like business as usual
By Julian Reid, Owner, Julian Reid Estate Agents in Stoke Newington
There are certain times of the year when London appears to empty itself.
August is one of them.
You can spend months discussing interest rates, government policy and house-price indices, but sometimes the explanation for a quieter property market is less sophisticated: half your buyers are in France, Italy or Cornwall and the other half are wondering why they agreed to stay in London during another heatwave.
Then September arrives.
The schools reopen, Church Street fills up again, emails are answered rather more quickly and buyers who had put their search on hold start looking at Rightmove over breakfast.
That seems to be happening this year.
Rightmove’s September House Price Index shows asking prices rising by 0.7% nationally, the first monthly increase since May and slightly ahead of the usual September seasonal rise.
After a fairly miserable run of summer statistics, that is welcome.
It is not, however, permission to put another £50,000 on the asking price.
The interesting part isn’t the 0.7%
The figure I find more interesting in Rightmove’s latest report is that buyer demand remains 9% below this time last year, while the number of homes for sale is at a twelve-year high.
That may sound less encouraging, but it explains the market rather well.
People want to buy. They are simply under no pressure to buy the wrong thing.
That distinction is particularly important in Stoke Newington.
A buyer looking for a two-bedroom flat today might have several plausible options around Stoke Newington Common, Rectory Road, Manor Road and towards Newington Green. A family looking for a house around Lordship Park, Albion Road or the streets close to Clissold Park may have fewer options, but they will still compare them very carefully.
When buyers have choice, mediocre property at an excellent price can sell. Excellent property at a sensible price can sell very well.
What struggles is anything that asks the buyer to make too many excuses.
London has had a tougher year — N16 hasn’t stopped being N16
Rightmove’s London figures are quite revealing.
Average asking prices in the capital rose 1.8% during September, a stronger monthly rebound than the national figure, but they remain 2.6% below this time last year. The average time required to find a buyer is now around 78 days, and Rightmove says fewer than half of London homes currently coming to market are successfully finding a buyer.
Those numbers deserve respect.
But they do not mean every London neighbourhood behaves identically.
The latest ONS figures put Hackney’s average sale price at around £606,000 in July, 2.6% lower than a year ago. First-time buyers paid an average of around £549,000.
Meanwhile, the average private rent has risen to £2,658 per month — 3.6% more than a year earlier.
There is quite a lot contained in those three numbers.
Sale prices have become more realistic. Renting has become more expensive. And buying in Hackney remains a considerable financial commitment.
No wonder buyers are thoughtful.
But thoughtful buyers are still buyers.
The properties people really want remain quite obvious
After years of working in Stoke Newington, you notice that fashions change rather more quickly than fundamentals.
People may debate kitchen colours, parquet flooring and whether open-plan living has finally had its day. What they rarely stop wanting is good light, sensible proportions, outside space, a decent street and somewhere they can imagine staying.
A good garden flat near Clissold Park still has an audience.
So does a well-proportioned maisonette around Albion Road, a family house near Church Street, or a flat close enough to Newington Green to enjoy it without necessarily hearing it.
The difficulty comes when the seller values the property for all the things they love about it while the buyer values it for all the things they will need to change.
That gap has always existed. In today’s market, it simply becomes obvious more quickly.
Pricing correctly is becoming its own marketing tool
Rightmove says 74% of homes sold this year did not need an asking-price reduction.
That is an extraordinary useful statistic because it cuts through the usual argument about whether an agent should suggest the highest possible asking price to win an instruction.
A high valuation can be flattering.
It cannot make somebody buy the property.
The first few weeks of marketing remain the period when a home has maximum novelty. Every active buyer receives the notification. The photographs are fresh. Nobody is asking why it has been online for four months.
That opportunity should not be wasted.
A price that looks sensible beside competing properties gets people through the door. Once they are inside, the house can do the rest.
Reducing months later can eventually get you to the same figure, but by then everybody knows you have reduced.
There is a difference.
There is some encouragement beyond Rightmove too
The latest RICS residential survey suggests the market has been slowly improving beneath the surface.
Its measure of new buyer enquiries improved for the fifth consecutive month in August. Agreed sales also became less negative, and surveyors’ expectations for sales activity over the coming year have edged into positive territory.
Again, I wouldn’t hang out the bunting.
But it does suggest the summer’s weakness was not necessarily the beginning of something more sinister. Some of it was simply a difficult combination of mortgage rates, holidays, heat, football and uncertainty arriving at roughly the same time.
September has removed several of those distractions.
Mortgages remain the uncomfortable conversation
The average two-year fixed mortgage rate tracked by Rightmove is now 5.29%, compared with 5.09% last month.
For a London buyer with a substantial mortgage, that matters.
We can talk about confidence and autumn activity all we like, but monthly affordability is ultimately what determines whether many transactions happen.
The better news is that there is still a healthy range of mortgage products. Lenders want customers. Buyers are not facing an absence of credit; they are deciding how much debt they are comfortable carrying.
That tends to produce negotiation rather than paralysis.
First-time buyers have an interesting decision
The average first-time buyer price in Hackney is now around £549,000. That is unquestionably a large number.
But average rents of £2,658 a month are also a large number.
For someone already paying a substantial rent and intending to remain in N16 for many years, buying can still make sense even if it is not possible to guarantee what prices will do next year.
Property has always been a poor place for people who require certainty before acting. There is never any.
There is only the information available today, one’s own circumstances and whether the property is somewhere you genuinely want to live.
Landlords are adjusting too
The Renters’ Rights Act has now become part of normal working life rather than something approaching on the horizon.
Some landlords have decided the additional regulation is not for them. Others have taken the opposite view: strong rents and persistent tenant demand justify staying invested, provided the property is managed properly and compliance is taken seriously.
In Stoke Newington, good rental property remains sought after.
The regulatory framework may change; the shortage of good homes in desirable parts of London has not vanished.
So, is this the start of an autumn recovery?
Perhaps.
But I prefer the word normalisation.
After an unusually distracted summer, people are returning to decisions that had been postponed. Asking prices have recovered a little. Buyer enquiries are improving nationally. Homes are selling.
At the same time, London buyers have plenty of choice and mortgages remain expensive enough to impose discipline.
That is probably no bad thing.
The strongest property markets are not necessarily the ones where everybody is rushing. They are the ones where buyers and sellers can reach an agreement that both sides regard as sensible.
Stoke Newington remains a place people choose deliberately. The park is still here. Church Street is still busy. The schools, cafés, houses and community that drew people to N16 have not suddenly become less appealing because the national housing index had a difficult summer.
My advice is therefore much as it has been through many different markets.
If you are selling, take the market seriously and price accordingly.
If you are buying, do your sums and don’t let a good property pass simply because you are waiting for the world to become perfectly predictable.
It never has been.
Please contact me, Julian Reid – Jullian Reid estate agents in Stoke Newington for an informal chat or to book a market appraisal.
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