Where have all the houses gone (one year on)?

CLifeA year ago, we commented on the shortage of country houses emerging onto the Spring market as exemplified by the number of advertisements in the pages of Country Life – so we thought to see whether 2015 had been more encouraging.

However, the first fourteen weeks of this year showed a drop of some 18% on the numbers of properties advertised over the same period last year, with only 346 properties against the 422 advertised in 2014.

Looking at the south east, this fall is even more evident.  Across Surrey, only 15 properties were advertised this year, compared to 30 last year – down 50%!  The picture is no more encouraging across Kent, with a mere 14 (24 in 2014) – a fall of 42%.

It is only looking further out, across Sussex, that the picture improves – with 12 properties advertised across West Sussex (up 9%) and 6 across East Sussex (up 50%) – although even these numbers are really too small to extrapolate as percentages.

Of course, with more and more buyers buying ‘off market’ (or through property portals on the internet), counting Country Life pages can only represent a reflection of the market – albeit a disappointing one.