The increase of people working from home is to cause an upsurge in house buying reports estate agent Hamptons.
With 5-day office working less prevalent since the pandemic began, and flexible and remote working now the norm for many people, the leading estate agent is predicting that this will cause more and more people to look to move home in 2022.
It has become key for so many workers around the UK to have a suitable and comfortable homeworking set up, and as such the desire for more space and flexibility will continue to stimulate the market. Property portal Rightmove, also reports a significant rise in the number of people searching for homes further from town and city centres, with larger gardens and space for a home office. Whilst this may not be a permanent change, coronavirus has certainly made people think about how and where they work and live.
And while equity rich homeowners have dominated buying and selling activity during the pandemic, a second wave of lock-down related demand will arise from potential buyers who were unable to move in 2020/21.
Mortgage rates have also been driven to record lows thanks to huge demand to move home in the wake of the pandemic, combined with banks having large cash reserves due to an uptick in personal savings, and the fact they can borrow cheaply with the Bank of England base rate sitting at 0.1 per cent, which will help boost affordability, especially for first-time buyers. This will be welcome news considering the sky-high mortgage rates seen in the early days of covid.
The first half of 2021 showed that more homes were sold during this period than in any year since 2007, but in turn this has seen higher asking prices. However, the agent says that they expect to see prices slowing down heading into the end of the year which will in turn also add to the number of people looking to move house or up-size.
