Tees property market ‘buoyant’ amid gloom
TEESSIDE estate agents are still convinced the area can ride out the property market storm, which nationally has seen the highest number of chartered surveyors since 1978 reporting a fall in house prices.
The gloomy data reported today by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said that in the North-east, 49% more chartered surveyors reported a fall than a rise in new buyer enquiries - up from 39% in January.
But despite the gloomy news, local experts believe nightmarish thoughts of a 1990s-style crash in the Tees are misplaced.
Michael Poole, Middlesbrough-based vice-chairman of the North-east branch of the National Association of Estate Agents, said homeowners were still looking to trade up from their current properties.
He said: “People sometimes have to move to other areas because they can’t find suitable properties nearby. There is a lack of supply in some areas and fears about the market won’t stop developers from building homes.
Property consultant Dee Wright of Roseberry Newhouse in Stokesley said the local market was still witnessing reasonable levels of activity.
She said: “Buyers are being cautious but in a good location we’re still selling, such as Stokesley, Yarm, all the National Park villages and the North Yorkshire villages.”
Russell Belton, joint managing director of Snail Homes, Stockton, said locally the market was still “buoyant” and that the root problems were caused by lenders.
He added: “The situation is not as bad as people would have us believe. It is scaremongering. We have swiftly moved on from global warming to house prices because we are obsessed with it in this country; it is not the same in France or Spain.
“The market is still buoyant but it is hard getting a mortgage - lenders keep changing the goal posts, and this is what is causing the problem.”
Due to the credit crunch, lenders have reduced the number of products available to homeowners and have forced first-time buyers to stump up massive deposits - forcing many out of the market.
Yvonne Taylerson, valuer and estate agency partner from Halifax Estate Agents in Guisborough, said: “It’s harder for first-time buyers where they can’t get 100% mortgages. But they are still coming in about properties, and investors are buying some of the terraced properties”.
