Property Market Set for Strong Return to Form

According to new data, a January spike in AML activity across the property sector suggests that those predicting the catastrophic decline of the market in 2023 have done so both prematurely and incorrectly.

The analysis of unique AML data has enabled a comprehensive look at buyer and seller activity within the property sector.

In doing so, this data allows early insight into the health of the market before it is reported by any house price report or mortgage data release.

Their historic data has already mapped a number of previous market trends.

It shows a -30.6% month to month reduction in AML market activity in December 2021 following the first Bank of England base rate increase.

But while many were quick to call the impending collapse of the market, Credas Technologies, the company responsible for compiling the data, predicted the opposite.

AML market activity climbed 52.4% between December 2021 and January 2022, peaking in June of last year as the market continued to perform strongly.

Following last September’s disastrous mini-budget and the resulting turbulence seen across the mortgage sector, the data also shows AML activity drop at an average rate of -8.1% per month between October and December 2022.

However, 2023 has seen a degree of stability return to the market and the latest figures suggest that the market has bounced back at a considerable rate.

They estimate that by the end of January, AML market activity will have increased by 45.3% versus December of last year, up 21.6% when compared to January 2022, returning to the same levels seen during much of last summer.

Tim Barnett, CEO of the leading identity verification provider Credas Technologies, said:

“We saw a heightened level of market turbulence following last September’s mini-budget which caused an immediate decline in property market activity.

At which point, the property sector naysayers re-emerged to once again make predictions of doom and gloom, having been previously proved wrong when doing so at the start of 2022.

However, our ahead-of-the-curve insight suggests that the property sector has bounced back at an impressive rate when compared to the decline seen during the final quarter of 2022.

At the same time, the current level of market activity has also exceeded that of January 2022 by quite some margin, suggesting that any momentary market wobble could well be in the rear view mirror.

Whilst nobody has a crystal ball, what our data does indicate is that those who have made the most dire of predictions for the housing market in Q1 may well prove, for the second time in a year, to be wildly pessimistic.

Early indications are that the outlook is much healthier than many have so confidently predicted.”