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This week, we were again privileged to hear the latest thoughts from our friendly behavioural economist Roger Martin-Fagg.
Roger uses his study of human behaviour to predict economic trends, and the impact they will have on UK industries. Regular readers will remember me saying that Roger describes himself as being “…broadly right, the majority of the time…”, and his predications for the last year or so have followed this pattern, despite many of them not being widely held views at the time!
A thought or two on the current property market in the lakes and surrounding areas of north Lancashire and the western fringes of Yorkshire.
Many people in Britain would probably be able to name Windermere, Ambleside, and Keswick. Others might know Kirkby Lonsdale and the Lune Valley. Some perhaps, may know of the simply delightful towns & villages along the Kent estuary and Morecambe Bay, from Bolton-le-Sands to Grange-over-Sands.
Perhaps what you might not expect would be for the village of Warton, situated between Carnforth and Silverdale, to be the number one staycation destination in Britain!
Buying & Selling in a fast-moving market.
Buyers
Firstly, what is a buyer in today’s fast-moving market?
The vast majority of those currently buying, are people who are able to exchange contracts quickly, either because they are first time buyers with a mortgage offer already in place, or because they have sold their own home and are renting (or staying with family), or they simply have the cash to exchange and complete!
Along with all the other changes we have seen over the last year, there has been a huge increase in the number of people requiring better and faster internet connections, both for home working and for watching the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Arnside and Kirkby Lonsdale are in the top 8 places to live in the North-West according to The Sunday Times Best Places to Live 2021!
So, what did they think?
Continue reading » “The Sunday Times Best Places to Live 2021”
Like I am sure many of you, we have been looking at the implications from the Budget announcements on Wednesday, and like us, I suspect most of you thought it didn’t hold too many surprises, given the government’s recent pattern of ‘leaking’ information ahead of time, and then confirming their plans.
Whilst there were lots of very big (and quite scary!) numbers, certainly in terms of the country’s debt, following all of the various support packages for the pandemic, there were also a number of very positive and encouraging signs, with the economy predicted to rebound to pre-covid levels later this year, as the vaccine rollout continues, and life get back to some sort of normality.
Whilst we are technically still awaiting confirmation in next week’s Budget, I am sure many of you will have seen the news that the government have decided to extend the current ‘Stamp Duty Holiday’.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is set to push the March 31st deadline back a further 3 months to the end of June, and although it has not been confirmed whether this extension will encompass ‘new buyers’ or just those already in involved in a sale who fail to meet the current March 31st deadline (which is currently estimated at over 100,000 transactions!), it will be welcome relief to many (including thousands of solicitors and conveyancers!!).
Those of you who are regular readers of our updates, will remember us mentioning our friendly behavioural economist Roger.
During the first lockdown, he was flying in the face of all the doom mongering media and their predictions for a long recession, and instead telling us we were all in for a huge rebound, following the pent-up demand, with everyone starting to spend again as lockdown eased.
As Roger often puts it himself, he is “…broadly right, the majority of the time…”, and certainly in property terms, it appears this was another of those occasions!
We are indeed in remarkable times – life changing, very sad, hopeful, frightening, unprecedented (in most people’s lifetime) – and all at the same time!
There are also an increasing number of positive stories staring to circulate; hope around vaccination, schools reopening (yes please!), holidays, and the economy rebounding.
The local property market (both Sales and Lettings) here in our beautiful part of the world are also experiencing unprecedented demand, and can be described with confidence by the word ‘vibrant’ (can you tell I have been helping with home schooling?) – so much so, that some new listings are attracting more than one buyer (six on one home!) who are ready willing and able to proceed, and we are receiving multiple applications on nearly all of the new lettings properties going live!
With all the uncertainty over what we can and can’t do during the latest lockdown, and the various rumours floating around over whether restrictions are going to be tightened or lifted, it’s easy to forget people still need somewhere to live.
In our lovely part of the world, the rental market is seeing huge numbers of people looking for a new home to rent. Indeed, just this week, within 48hrs of putting a couple of properties live on the market, we were inundated with over 70, yes 70, enquiries! (Needless to say, the properties were let the following day!)
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