Betterhomes; Property market predictions for 2020

“Hello and welcome to our final edition of Better Informed for 2019. It’s that time of year when we start to look ahead and I’ve been asked to come up with some predictions for the market for 2020. Now, I will prefix this with I do not have a crystal ball, but me and the team have been having a look at some of the trends as we come out of 2019 and what we think might be the key elements of the market as we go into 2020.

So, prediction number 1. We think the transaction numbers will continue to grow in 2020 and we’re expecting transaction numbers to be up roughly 20 – 25% on what we’ve seen this year. The driver of that is frankly going to be the value that people are seeing in the market today and we’ve seen that trend, as I say, over the last few months anyway. First time buyers, investors, both nationally and internationally are seeing the prices that are on offer here today and really taking advantage.

Number 2, I expect prices to really bottom out throughout 2020. As I say, the drive will be an increase in demand but the thing that will be holding prices back a little bit will be the continuation of supply coming to the market that we have seen in 2019 and going into 2020.

Prediction number 3, however, is we expect to see the number of new launches announced in 2020 to continue to fall. We’ve had 45, roughly, projects launches in 2019 which is down from a peak of 211 new projects launched in 2017. We expect that trend to continue, both as developers put the handbrake on in the face of falling prices, but also as the government step in with the new supply committee that will be set up in September.

Number 4, we expect the market to be driven both at the top and at the bottom of the market. Now that’s where we think there will be a lot of activity. At the bottom of the market that’s the affordable sector, sub 1 million. That’s where both first-time buyers are getting on the ladder and also investors are finding the best yield. There’s a lot of affordability activity at the moment and we expect that will continue, and we also expect the top of the market, that 10 million plus, to really see good activity. That, frankly, is because people at the top end of the market, where we’ve seen the biggest price falls in real terms, are going to start taking full advantage of that.

The final prediction for 2020 is that we think that Dubai, the UAE, is going to be the place to be. Not only because it already is the greatest city in the world to come and visit, settle down and make your home, but Expo itself is going to come to town. It’s going to be the biggest party the world has ever seen and we are really looking forward to seeing quite how Dubai and the UAE make that happen, so it’s going to be a great place to be.

So, that’s it from us. I want to wish you all a merry Christmas, a happy and prosperous new year from everybody at the Betterhomes group and we’ll speak to you in 2020. Thank you.”

Richard Waind

Group Managing Director