Rightmove sees record traffic as home hunters turn out in force - and Chancellor admits house prices rises could last a decade
02-06-2014
- London property values have increased by 11% on average in the past year
- George Osborne says housebuilding make take 10 years to meet demand
By Matt West
Property search website Rightmove has said it saw record traffic last month, as demand from potential homeowners stepped up a gear at the start of 2014.
For the first time, Rightmove saw the number of page views on its website reach 50million in one day, only for this new high to be surpassed a couple of weeks later. Both of these new records were reached on a Sunday.
Rightmove, whose figures go back to 2001, said people were viewing more than 500 property pages every second during January.
Accelerating: Demand for property is still way above supply and its heating up house prices across the country
The website saw a new peak of 50,339,165 page views on January 12, followed by an even busier 51,945,967 page views throughout the day on January 26.
It said that searching via mobile devices accounted for just over two-fifths (43 per cent) of all page views on the busiest day.
The number of enquiries made via the website from prospective buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants rose to another all-time high of over four million across January, marking an increase of three-fifths (61 per cent) on the same month last year.
Matthew James, head of communications at Rightmove, said increased market confidence is a ‘major factor’ in the unprecedented levels of traffic the website is seeing.
He said: ‘Whilst some may take this as evidence that a bubble is forming, it's worth remembering that the market across the UK has been in the doldrums for many years and what we are seeing is partly an overdue release of pent-up demand and is part of the housing market recovery process.’
The surge in enquiries comes as Chancellor George Osborne predicted the current boom in property prices would continue for a decade with demand for new homes continuing to outstrip supply.
Decade long: Chancellor George Osborne forecast house prices rises would last for ten years due to the under supply of properties in Britain
The chancellor said despite efforts to build more homes to increase supply, demand will remain a problem until at least 2024.
And he defended his Help to Buy scheme which is guaranteeing billions in new mortgages against claims it was fuelling the housing bubble which has seen prices leap by more than 11 per cent in London.
Latest figures show that just 107,950 affordable homes were built in 2012-13, less than half the 300,000 some experts think are needed to meet growing demand.
There have been signs of the housing market revival becoming increasingly widespread, following the launch of the second phase of the Help to Buy scheme in October to offer state-backed mortgages to people with deposits as low as 5 per cent,.
The number of mortgages on the market for people in this borrowing bracket has tripled since the initiative got under way.
But some experts have raised particular concerns about the strength of house price growth in London, which saw property values leap by 11.2 per cent across 2013 according to Land Registry figures.
Think tank Civitas has suggested that restrictions should be placed on overseas buyers being able to snap up properties in the English capital to ease the problem of younger people and families being ‘priced out’.
Economic forecasters the EY ITEM Club has said that the Bank of England may need to consider imposing a formal limit on income multiples in relation to the size of the mortgage that someone wants to borrow.
Giving evidence to the Lords Economic Affairs Committee Mr Osborne said the problem of housing supply would take years to solve.
‘I don't pretend this problem is going to be solved in a few months or a couple of years,’ he said.
‘This is a big challenge for our country. We have got to build more homes.’
He added: ‘I imagine if we were to assemble again in 10 years' time we would still be talking about the challenge of making sure that our housing supply keeps up with demand.’
He pointed out that house prices had fallen ‘quite considerably’ during the recession, and were still significantly below their peak.
But the Chancellor conceded that the underlying mismatch between demand for homes and the supply is far from being addressed.