Philip Plambeck of Smiths Gore takes a look at what’s happening in the property market and anticipates what lies ahead:

“Next year is going to be a truly exciting year for sellers, buyers and the property industry on the whole. Not only will we all be trying to predict the next moves of a market that has seen a succession of rapid rises followed by slight falls in recent years, with an election thrown into the mix for good measure, but changes are also afoot in the world of property portals. This last fact has generated a huge amount of discussion within the industry since the launch of a new agent-owned portal – OnTheMarket.com – was agreed a year or so ago.

Watch this space next month to find out which dozen or so Winchester agents will take part in this exciting new marketing initiative for our clients.

In the meantime, what can we expect from the existing portals in the run up to then? Quite a lot, actually. Whilst there is a common perception that mid-winter is not a good time to sell a house, experience and statistics tell another story.

Experience tells us that property transactions don’t vary a huge amount from one month to the next. Statistics demonstrate that there are as many house hunters around in December and January as there are in May and June. Rightmove, to cite just one example, repeatedly reports record breaking search results on Christmas Day – a staggering 1.8 million last year! And all property websites witness a 30% growth in traffic in the first two weeks of January. Granted, a lot of these browsers are probably gauging the market whilst making their own plans for the year. But many will also be serious purchasers with sales agreed on their own homes and desperate to find somewhere in a market usually deprived of new stock.

This means that sellers who want to get ahead of the competition need to commit early in order to be in the starting blocks in early January to tap into this often overlooked sale time.

Contact Smiths Gore for a no obligation market appraisal. Benefit from all our usual services including free professional photography and floor plans, guaranteed accompanied viewings and you could also be amongst the first to appear on the country’s newest and most advanced property search engine.

Here’s to 2015!”