Minors & Brady’s Jamie Minors offers his thoughts on the local property market as we head into autumn.

Eastern Daily Press: Jamie Minors, managing director of Minors & Brady. Picture: Minors & BradyJamie Minors, managing director of Minors & Brady. Picture: Minors & Brady (Image: Archant)

The leaves are dropping, the sun is disappearing and colourful planters are turning grey. All sounds a bit bleak doesn’t it?

Well, if you own a property or a portfolio, at least house prices increasing could provide some happiness.

There’s no hiding from the bizarre world and circumstances we are still in, particularly as the housing market has done the complete opposite to what was predicted throughout lockdown.

The ‘experts’ predicted a 10pc-20pc price drop, however the market across the summer did the opposite, with data from the Bank of England showing there were 84,700 mortgage approvals in August, the highest since October 2007!

Following post lockdown and the stamp duty holiday, we saw gazumping return. For those that don’t know, gazumping is the process of offering more on an already sale agreed property, to sabotage the current sale and purchase it.

Morally it’s completely wrong, however as we are instructed to do the very best for our seller, including achieving the highest figure, then we have to inform the seller of each higher offer. In fact in August, 13pc of properties were sold for over asking price; that’s one in eight!

As we move into autumn, we will still see more serious buyers. From our own data, the viewing per sale ratio falls going into autumn/winter, with more serious home hunters viewing.

The other surge on the tick lists this time of year are driveways and garages; it’s a time for the terrace owners who can’t get a space at 6pm on their populated roads, shopping in hand and the gym bag from the morning to move.

So, while there may be some big changes in the world, there still has never been a better time to move, with a lot of motivated buyers, sellers and house hunters looking for their next move, before the stamp duty holiday ends with their potential £15,000 saving.

Times are changing, so get the kettle on, get your property re-valued and see if there’s a dream home out there for you.

This column is sponsored by Minors & Brady.