We’ve been looking through the data for 2024 to see when the property market was at its busiest! The data that we look at is taken from Rightmove, not just AKS, so it covers the whole of the DE65 market.
The first thing that stood out, was that there were 25% more sales in 2024 than there were in 2023. We sensed that was the way things had gone from our regular market updates but still noticed that its rather a big jump. Also, there were only 6% more listings compared to 2023, which makes the sales figure even more interesting and an even better sign that each individual person selling has an even better chance. Overall, 2024 felt busier as a whole and it already feels that 2025 may be even better, given the start we’ve had at AKS!
Another thing we looked at was when busiest month for sales was, which was not what we would have guessed it to be! There were more sales agreed in July than any other month. Being in the middle of the year and just when the school holidays are happening, you wouldn’t expect that to be the case. Speaking of school holidays, we then noticed that the busiest month for new properties hitting the market was August! So not at all what you’d generally expect.
Oddly, summer seemed to be busier, however we feel that post COVID, the market seems to be much less seasonal. There are now less peaks and troughs throughout the year and it’s a little more evened out. The first part of the year is still generally busier than the second, but we saw in 2024, there were 32% more sales agreed and 30% more listings in the first 6 months of the year compared to the second. So still busier, but January was a little slower, picking up as the year went on and then dropping off as expected in the run up to Christmas with less new sales agreed and less properties coming on. To highlight the contrast, there were only 23 new properties in December, but 81 in March!
We also looked at when the most price reductions happened, which was May, where there were 51. We imagine this may be a potential backlog of people who have listed early in the year, having then had an influx of properties hit the market in March, resulting in properties having to compete with their price, hence the price reductions.
Although we keep track of the current year compared to the previous year regularly, it’s interesting to summarise like this and pick out some key features, such as a less seasonal market, a quieter January than you’d expect and gathering more pace come February and March. The key thing here is that there’s no right or wrong time to move. List/move when it suits you. Although December is quieter, the year is quite consistent and therefore no need to find a “best time to sell”.
