Richard Blake Header
All sorts of property industry bodies have produced rather depressing figures for the UK housing market over the last few weeks. There are numerous reasons given for this including the threat of higher interest rates, the collapse of the buy to let/second home market due to Mr Osborne’s three percent increase in Stamp Duty for those buyers and of course the uncertainty over Brexit. Although the level of transactions has dropped dramatically over the last few years, prices have held fairly steady, due mainly to the lack of stock.
An area where prices are under real pressure is Central London where the bubble has not burst but has deflated somewhat. Dartmouth’s market of course never seems to follow the trends of most of the rest of the UK and actually the last six weeks up until mid-April have seen probably the best market conditions we have had for some time. I am only too aware that conditions are extremely volatile and can change day by day, but I have been busier recently than probably for the last couple of years.
The last week has been a little quieter and I was thinking that we could really do with some sunshine and it duly arrived, so as I am speaking the sky is cloudless and the appointments are pouring in again.
An incredible amount of work has gone into the impending change to the Data Protection Act. GDPR is arriving towards the end of May and business throughout the UK has had to change the way it operates. In general business are not allowed to hold peoples data unless they have prior permission to do so. There are exceptions of course, but for some industries it means big changes and potentially big fines if you are caught breaking the regulations. I have been on several courses on the subject so I can’t imagine how many business hours throughout the UK have been taken up with the preparation.
So the market locally looks steady, has been busy and we hope it will continue in that vein throughout the summer. The wonderful Music Festival is only a few weeks away from writing this article and the event brings thousands of people to the town. I am sure it will be another successful event.
First published By The Dart magazine May 2018 issue