Listening to friends and family trying to negotiate the Northern Ireland property market in 2021 makes it clear just how exceptionally busy it has been — and for a number of reasons.
The house price growth has been 10.2% across the province, which is a lot higher than norm, which would tend to be 4% to 5%,” says Simon Brien of Simon Brien Estate Agents (simonbrien.com).
“That’s been driven by a number of factors: number one, people wanting to move for lifestyle reasons; it’s really being prompted by Covid and lockdown and working from home.
“People have decided they want a fourth bedroom, a bigger garden, to move to the country and there’s a significant amount of people also returning from further afield to live in Northern Ireland. That sort of fuelled the market which has driven prices.”
Given the strength of house sales in 2021, perhaps it’s no surprise that demand is outstripping supply.
“There’s been a lot of viewing activity at anything that’s been coming up,” says Simon of the property shortage.
“For anybody selling, it’s been a very good time to sell because there’s a lot of viewers and offers coming in very quickly and houses making over asking prices, which is good when you’re selling but probably not so good when you’re buying.
“Going into the spring, I do think the market will continue as it left off in 2021 because there still is an undersupply in both the private resale market and the new homes market.
“But I don’t anticipate really that the rate of growth will be as strong as last year. It was particularly strong, buoyed up by a lot of people’s lifestyle choices after a return from England where people maybe have a lot more money.”
“This market is actually really sustainable; we’ve the same number of houses and we’ve a much greater audience interested in buying them,” says John Minnis of John Minnis Estate Agents (johnminnis.co.uk).
“We also have a monetary lending market that is bolstered up on decent deposits. It’s not like 2007 where there were 130% mortgages, self-certification mortgages.
“You went to the bank because you wanted to buy a house and they offered you money for the house and then more money to put on an extension. They were throwing money at people and then they took it all back.
“We are in a scenario with more people who want to buy our limited number of houses.”
Northern Ireland remains the most affordable region in the UK property wise, with an average house price of £150,000.
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