Week 18 - DM & Co. Homes - The Solihull Property Market

Hello everybody and welcome to this weeks roundup, Week 18 can you believe!

There has been a sharp rise in the number of people asking for valuations this week - across the business. Having spent some time with each department this week, the underlying tone was that of frustration with the market. Buyers remain cautious of prices peaking and many agents are actively over valuing to win business. This is counterproductive and causes further confusion in the market. This has been evidenced recently by the amount of price reductions. The BOE announced another interest rate rise and with it looking likely that is will rise further before the end of the year - I suspect many of those ‘thinking’ of moving will bring that forward and decide to move sooner rather than later and in doing so commit to a fixed term mortgage. This is something that Lisa touches upon in her roundup!

For me personally, I am focussed on providing the local community with a property company that is able to deliver across a multitude of disciplines. I am now really starting to see this come to light. The core focus of the business is customer service and the effort that has gone into defining key roles within the business to provide this has enabled me to focus on delivering the very best customer service to our clients.

I believe in everything that we do, my personal mobile number is available to anybody that would like it and I believe in providing an absolutely transparent, honest and open position - at all times. I do truly believe that this is what continues to set us apart from the competition. We are not afraid of telling you that your property is not worth ‘x’ or that we cannot reduce our fees because ‘somebody’ down the road will do it for a ‘y’ - we are not a volume business, if you want to achieve the very best price and have very best service then you cannot expect to pay bargain basement prices. Sure, your house is likely to sell - have you seen how hot the market is? But was there somebody working tirelessly to achieve the very best price for you? How much did you lose? - The truth is, if you make the wrong decision - you’ll never know!

Right, that’s enough from me…over to my Sales Director, Lisa Smith (who is currently having a wonderful and well deserved weekend off!)

“May has started with a high number of appointments with homeowners considering a sale, and across all price ranges. However, the question they have all asked is “What is going to happen to the market?” With the Bank Of England rate increase this week, it appears to have spurred people on to make a decision soon. Sell now or wait to see what happens? All that I can advise is that if I was thinking of selling within the next 6 months, I would bite the bullet and do it now. It’s a great time to be achieving high sale prices, although a cautionary tale maybe the high number of price reductions I have seen with other agents. I have mentioned before, the search for your next home may be tough, with the number of properties for sale low and a high number of buyers. With talk of house prices steadying or falling in the next year, maybe we will see a surge of properties coming to the market now? Many of the people I have spoken to have said they would be prepared to sell now, and go into rented and sit it out. The rental market is whole other conversation, over to Gabrielle!” - Lisa Smith, Branch Manager - Dorridge and Sales Director

“We are off to a flying start for May on team Lettings! We instructed a one bedroom apartment in Olton this week which we successfully let on the first set of viewings and have a strong pipeline of properties ready and waiting to move in this month! The demand for rental properties is definitely still strong with more and more applicants looking to move into their next property. If you have a property soon to become available we would love to hear from you! Don’t forget - if growing your portfolio is important to you, join The Landlord Club today - Now is the time to invest and assess your portfolio!” - Gabrielle Argue, Lettings Manager

“Phase II of marketing at Collier Gardens, Tidbury Green now in full swing but just three remaining and new aerial shots showing build progression available online. Carlton Lodge, Moseley is now almost 50% sold too with individual listings launching during the week, boosting interest across the board and generating new enquiries for the 8 remaining apartments. Two new sites will launch this weekend including a large scale development opportunity in Knowle and a brand new couple of homes in one of Coventry’s most prestigious roads. To be kept in the loop with all development opportunities being worked on at DM & Co, I advise you to fire me an email by clicking here!” - Chris Evans, Land & New Homes Manage

“Elaine has settled in, and perfect timing with all the new instructions that we have in the pipeline. I have spoken to quite a few people this week saying that they feel the market is slowing down, that is simply not the case in the £1m+ market. One of our latest instructions attracted 8 offers over the asking price ending up at 7.5% higher than the list price - 6 of these offers were buyers in proceed-able positions that are now trying to find something ASAP! I would say to anyone whose house is on the market at over £1 million pounds,  if your house isn't selling, it is likely to be overpriced and as such not attracting enough attention. It is so easy to fall victim to fantastic high valuations with lots of promises, but with so few homes coming to the market, some agents are resorting to over valuing to gain instructions. This damages your property and results in listings that sit there for weeks on end. These houses then either get reduced and prospective buyers then wonder whats wrong with the property, or they stay and look stale!  If you are reading this and that's happened to you, please do get in touch. We can make it work for you and put together a strategy to sell your home. We actually have 3 clients at present who have experienced exactly the above scenario and will be re-marketing with us over the next few weeks. We are the leading agent across Solihull for the sale of properties in excess of £1m - we are closer to this market than any other local agent (irrelevant of what some might say!) as such, we really do know what we are talking about. It is a great time to sell, so let’s get a coffee in the diary!” - Kathy Griffiths, Head of Premium

“Solihull has seen another strong week of activity with 5 new instructions, with plenty more in the pipeline - featuring a variety of apartments and houses - call us for more details. Already a good number of valuations booked in for the coming week so more new stock coming soon! High demand from buyers means we still require more so if you are considering selling and want to achieve best price, please do give us a call - we have genuine motivated  buyers ready, willing and able! Good levels of viewing activity this week and offers on multiple properties. Whatever type of property you are looking for do get in touch and our experienced and dedicated team will do all we can to help. Happy house hunting!” - Peter Faithfull, Branch Manager - Solihull

Thank you for taking the time to read this weeks market update - if you would like to know about anything property related, we would love to hear from, and help you. If you’d like to book a valuation, that is really easily done - click here!

Let’s be honest - selling your home is never going to be easy, there will always be something that doesn’t quite go to plan - what is incredibly important is how your agent reacts to these instances.

If you would like to learn more about how we operate, please get in touch with the Solihull or Dorridge office on 0121 775 0101 or 01564 777 314 respectively.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Dominic Murphy - email me here or WhatsApp on 07595 903 811

Managing Director – DM & Co. Homes