January Newsletter - What's the market doing?

It's the start of a New Year with Wood & Pilcher, and we've plenty to get your teeth into in this first newsletter of 2020, starting with a look at how the country's property market is currently performing.

We have a look at a selection of local events (which you can find below), we also look at the positive year that our branches have enjoyed alongside an in-depth review of Southborough and Heathfield, which should be high on your locations list if you’re thinking of moving to the area!

Penhurst Place - Roast and Rambles

Enjoy a delicious Sunday Carvery in the Garden Restaurant and have the opportunity to see and learn about the House and Gardens of Penshurst Place.

Click here to read Penhurst Place - Roast and Rambles.

What's the market doing?

 

Here’s what our competitors think:

• The UK residential property sales market remains subdued in 2019…soft market conditions particularly in London and the South East of England
• Brexit uncertainty continues to cast a shadow over market conditions with low levels of buyer and seller confidence
• Brexit is still in progress, which at best is a distraction and at worst, a disruption to the housing market as seen by the numbers of new customers registering to buy…
• The market…remains weak, affected by political and Brexit uncertainty. In view of this environment...we took a series of further self-help actions to accelerate and reset our cost structure in order to reflect current activity levels

It’s true that the latest figures for 2019 show that sales volumes in Tonbridge & Malling are down 20% year-on-year and the two biggest estate agency chains in our area have closed a significant number of branches. Sounds pretty bad, right?

Well, over that same period of time, our sales volumes are up by 16%, so it’s not so much “business as usual” but rather “more business than usual”. We’re a team of experienced, qualified, professional people and we’re certainly not pretending that there hasn’t been a downturn; we just refuse to participate. We’ve seen all this before and we know how to adapt and outperform the market, so our clients can be confident that they are in safe hands. Because tough times never last, tough people do.

If you’re thinking about a fresh approach, why not give us a call on 01732 351135?

Wood & Pilcher Tonbridge

 

Crowborough - A look back on 2019

 

Before we look forward, we will look back at 2019!

• According to land registry figures from October 2018 to 2019 TN6 postcodes (Crowborough) overall number of sales fell 22%
• Some nearby postcodes fell by as much as 44%

The figures above show a downturn overall in all areas we cover from our office in Crowborough, and we certainly experienced a similar shift in sale transactions. However, over the period 2018 to 2019 our sold market share has increased from 21% to 23% of the whole market in the TN6 postcode. We believe this is due to the difficulties in the market always bringing experienced professionals to the fore. We maintain that we always provide our clients with a full service, not just selling the property but providing progression through to exchange and completion. This level of service is vital, and these factors should always be considered when choosing your next agent.

Looking forward, already the early signs are very encouraging and we have secured a number of sales already in the early part of January and in our opinion feel that both sides of the market will increase considerably in the first quarter of this year.

We are currently carrying out many market appraisals in the area and if you are thinking of selling please do give us a call on 01892 665666 as Rightmove statistics confirm we are the number one selling agent in the town.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Wood & PilcherCrowborough

Heathfield - A vibrant market town

 

Heathfield is a small yet vibrant Market Town equidistant from Tunbridge Wells and Eastbourne, both being approximately 16 Miles. Heathfield Town itself holds a population of approximately 7500 whilst the Heathfield & Waldron Parish, which encompasses a number of surrounding villages, totals about 12500.

The Town has a wide variety of individual shops and restaurants and several supermarkets including a Waitrose and Tesco.

In the late 1800s, a Rail Link was built that ran through Heathfield, between Eridge and Polegate which closed in the 1960s. This is now well known as ‘The Cuckoo Trail’ and is very popular with walkers, cyclists and horse riders alike.

Buxted and Stonegate Railway Stations are both within a 15-minute drive of Heathfield and provide access to London in just over an hour.

The area has a number of good Primary Schools as well as Heathfield Community College which is a well regarded Secondary School and Sixth Form College.

Annual events include The Heffle Cuckoo Fair in April, The Heathfield Show (the largest 1-day agricultural show in the South East) in May and Le Marche (An Anglo/French Market) on the August Bank Holiday.

With so much to offer, Heathfield is an obvious choice to consider when buying your next home. So why not give us a call on 01435 862211?

Royal Wells Hotel – Out of Bounds Comedy

This great venue in Tunbridge Wells brings you a selection of the very best acts from the UK and World comedy circuits.

Click here to read Royal Wells Hotel – Out of Bounds Comedy.

Crowborough Farmers Market

Your local Farmers Market. Open on the fourth Saturday of every month 9am to 1pm on Croft Road, Crowborough.

Click here to read Crowborough Farmers Market.

Southborough - A thriving town

 

Considering moving to Southborough? There are some exciting developments taking place!

Our little town of Southborough has been going through a period of regeneration lately with the help of local businesses and the wider community.

Our High Street is starting to thrive with many independent traders including a tea room, café, barbershops & hairdressers, specialist flooring and furniture shops, the running and cricket shop, the pet store which has a groomers as well as small animal boarding and over Christmas was selling beautiful trees.

There is the chocolatier Temper Temper who specialise in all things chocolate and offer workshops and parties, as well as the Arty Farty retreat who are responsible for regular events held in Southborough High Street and exhibitions and holiday workshops for young and old. In addition, there are some fantastic restaurants, takeaways and pubs.

The Hub is a long term community project that will sit on the site of the former Royal Victoria Hall and has been a bone of contention for some, but should be seen as a fantastic addition to our town when completed in early 2021. It will comprise of a hall/theatre, community rooms, GP surgery, library, football pavilion and council facilities.

Wood & Pilcher support many local enterprises and businesses and look forward to welcoming many more over the coming year!

 

If the above makes you think Southborough could be the place to live, then why not call us on 01892 511311 to register your interest?

Tunbridge Wells - A prosperous year

 

The Tunbridge Wells office came into December with an abnormally high amount of residential sales stock, partly caused by the success of the valuing staff in the field, but also, of course, by the political uncertainties in the House of Commons. Whilst homeowners will inevitably face periods of uncertainty during the term of their mortgage, the vast majority prefer to buy in times of economic and political certainty and to this end, the market had been subdued for a lot of the year, particularly into Autumn and Winter.

What then happened is the cause of much optimism for us into 2020: The office achieved a sale per day in the weeks running up to Christmas. This was not only a great success for us but also an extremely unlikely one – Brexit was weighing on people’s minds and there was an imminent General Election. Our hopes have been raised that (the inevitable) pent up demand is starting to come through and hopefully 2020 will be a radically different year to both 2018 and 2019.

If one looks back a decade to a time when many banks were struggling terribly, the years following this crisis became particularly good ones for the property market as people realised that they simply had to move. Growing families, changes in personal circumstances, job moves or even downsizing really need to be done regardless of the state of the economy. To this end, we enter 2020 particularly optimistically.

The month-end also produced a good number of exchanges for the office. We are proud to have moved a good number of Tunbridge Wells residents both locally, and indeed internationally, in the month.

There are likely to be further interesting developments in the local property market throughout the year. There are currently a good number of construction sites in town which will produce a great number of both executive homes and apartments which will launch into the market. It will be interesting to see how demand fares.

 

To find out more, feel free to contact us on 01892 511211.