Is the worst over for home sales?

By Ian Pollock
Personal finance reporter, BBC News

David Smith shows off his list of more than 300 potential buyers

Estate agent David Smith is much happier than he was a year ago when the BBC website last asked him how business was going.

Then, he refused to smile for our camera, as each of the three branches he managed was struggling to sell one home a week each.

"Things have got infinitely better, people are buying again," says David.

"Last year, we had hordes of people wanting to sell and nobody buying; now it's the exact opposite."

Intriguingly, he is almost swamped with potential buyers.

"We have so many buyers it's frightening," he says.

"Last month, in the three branches I cover we registered just over 300 buyers."

Selling again

After cutting staff last year by leaving vacancies unfilled, David's firm is recruiting again.

The market is recovering, there are good signs, and I thought now is the time to get in there Atta Nasim

On Monday, he was joined by Atta Nasim at the Kentish Town branch of Martyn Gerrard.

It is a seven-branch estate agency chain that has been operating in this part of north London since the early 1960s.

Two years ago, as the credit crunch turned off the mortgage tap and crippled sales, Atta left his job at another estate agency in West London to work in a department store.

Now he is back selling homes.

"The market is recovering, there are good signs, and I thought now is the time to get in there," Atta says.

"I have got friends and family where I live in north-west London, and they are always phoning me up saying they have the mortgage arranged, they have the deposit, but they can't find anything, and can I help them?"

Mum and dad

The UK's banks may be struggling with huge losses and bad debts, but the Bank of Mum and Dad is flush with cash and, so it seems, is single-handedly reviving the country's housing market.

The Martyn Gerrard offices in Kentish Town Road, north London

David Smith says parents have been the main force behind this year's pick-up in sales.

"It's quite amazing, the number of buyers we get coming in with mum and dad in tow," he says.

"The majority of the people we are registering on our books are coming with the big deposits from their parents."

Many have been putting down large sums of money to finance the 20% or 25% deposits their children often need to buy flats or houses.

"One of the flats I sold at the weekend, the buyer brought his mum and dad down because they are putting down the deposit of over £100,000," says David.

"It is without question family funds, you can't save that sort of money in just one or two years."

First-timers return

David Smith's offices are now selling two or three homes a week.

That is my biggest worry, that unemployment starts coming through David Smith David Smith a year ago

Compared to a few years ago that is still not many, but it is enough to stay in business.

It is not a new boom by any means, but it does mean things are looking up for the first time in two years.

And as each of David's branches has only about 25 properties for sale, the recent suggestions from property surveys that there is a "shortage of supply" seem true.

This week, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' regular monthly report said the average UK estate agency had sold 15 properties over the past three months.

And it added that "increased interest from new buyers has not been matched by supply coming onto the market".

Who is looking to buy in Kentish Town?

"It's a whole range of people - a lot of young people, a lot of first-time buyers who want to get into the market," David says.

"People are coming in now and saying, 'Right, my finances are sorted, I've got a big deposit to put down, I've got the mortgage agreement in principle, what's out there?'"

Weird

Sales improved at the beginning of the year and have been getting better steadily since then.

Atta Nasim, happy to be an estate agent once again

Prices have been rising too, especially at the cheaper end of the market, which in the Kentish Town area means between £200,000 and £300,000.

Despite the economic recession there have been surprisingly few forced sellers or people who have been affected by unemployment.

"That is my biggest worry, that unemployment starts coming through, which it hasn't yet," David says.

"But it is the weirdest recession I can remember; it hasn't followed the same sort of pattern we've seen in the other recessions I've lived through," he adds.