Although UK wide there is a shortage of new property stock, you can find big disparities in stock levels in neighbouring property markets

According to the latest findings from online estate agents HouseSimple.com, dispite being located a mere 20 miles from each other, Darlington and Durham’s property supply couldn’t be further apart. The data revealed that while Darlington enjoyed an August rise of 30.2% in new properties listed compared to July, Durham saw supply drop by almost a third (31.2%).

Similarly, Telford and Hereford are both in the West Midlands, and just over 50 miles apart, but Telford saw the biggest rise (39.7%) in property supply in August of any town analysed by HouseSimple, while Hereford saw the biggest fall (33.3%) of any town.

To compile the Index, HouseSimple looks at data on more than 500,000 listed properties, to track the number of new properties marketed every month in more than 100 major towns and cities across the UK and all London boroughs.

Across the UK, property supply was down 8.6% in August compared to July, with almost two thirds (63.8%) of the country’s towns and cities experiencing a drop off in new property listings.

The following table shows the UK towns and cities that experienced the biggest falls in new property listings in August versus July:

Although the majority of towns and cities saw property supply fall in August – including London, which saw new property listings falls 14.4% – more than a third actually experienced a rise in new listings.

The following table shows the 10 UK towns and cities that experienced the biggest rises in new property listings in August versus July:

Alex Gosling, CEO of online estate agents HouseSimple.com comments: “Our latest supply index shows that although UK wide there is a shortage of new property stock, you can find big disparities in stock levels in neighbouring property markets.

For example, sellers in Durham appear more reluctant to put their properties on the market than they do in Darlington, with Durham seeing new property listings falling by more than 30% while Darlington experienced a 30% hike in new listings. August is traditionally a quieter month for the property market, so we would expect to see stock levels down during July and August when families head off for their summer holidays. But with such low levels of property stock at the moment across the country, we have seen slightly unusual stock behaviour since the EU Referendum. A third of towns and cities we researched saw property supply rise last month when we would normally expect it to fall.

September is a buoyant time for the property market, and typically we would expect to see new property listings rising across the country. If that doesn’t happen then alarm bells may start ringing. Hopefully the boost from a cut in interest rates, and more confidence generally in the state of the UK economy post-Brexit, should provide the reassurances that both buyers and sellers need.“