New Year, New Outlook for Richmond Upon Thames Property Owners

Welcome to 2025! Just a few short days ago it was 2024. Things can’t really be different for the Richmond Borough property market, can they?

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Logic would say ‘no’ – but there’s just that little bit of magic and mysticism in the air, which is saying: ‘of course!’. A New Year isn’t like a new day or a new week. It is a reset period. It is ambitious. It is reflective, of course it is, but in such a way that it is forward looking, brimming with optimism – like a teachable moment that demands change for the better…

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For Richmond, Teddington and Twickenham, the property market in 2024 was a paradox. Demand was high, yet prices fell slightly – a drop of just under 2% over the course of 12 months, similar to not just the rest of London but the South East in general. High inflation, stubborn base rates, a General Election and then a relatively unfriendly budget conspired to suppress the market here and elsewhere. 

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And yet, we enter 2025 with this burgeoning sense of optimism. We have high demand from buyers looking for a property in Richmond. We have seen properties hitting the open market already with banks of viewings booked, just from our social media launches alone. We’ve seen two base rate cuts over the past 6 months, and despite a tough fiscal landscape we still expect to see more through 2025 – an opinion backed up by economists. Mortgage rates have become more competitive and again are set to fall further. And now, entering the new year, the major forecasters have come out in an oddly unified voice, from Zoopla and Rightmove and the likes of The Halifax, to the boffins in the back rooms of Savills and Knight Frank HQs, offering predictions for 2025 house price increases of between 2.5% to 5%, and the majority hovering at around 3-4%. Modest and steady and stable, vis a vis predicted inflation – exactly what the property market needs.

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Stamp duty increases from April 1st are going to add £2,500 to the costs of (realistically) all non-first-time property purchases in our area. It’s a pain, but in a borough where our average property purchase is £739,000 according to the Office for National Statistics, that extra £2,500 is a nuisance, not a killer blow. For those first-time purchasers however, the stamp duty is going to be significantly more, as first-time buyer relief is set to drop from £625,000 to £500,000, with and the zero-pounds threshold dropping from £425,000 to £300,000. In an area where our average first time buyer is purchasing at £583,00, again drawing data from the Office for National Statistics, we are in an a part of the world where first time buyers may wish to bear this in mind, and potentially get their skates on to ensure their purchase goes through before March 31st – more so than in the vast majority of locations in the UK. Many people underestimate the length of time that legal work on a property transaction will take; the English average is 19 weeks, meaning that a sale getting agreed today would – on average - go through well after the end of March. Nevertheless, these things can be done in 10 weeks, working with the right solicitors and purchasing from the right sellers who respond to enquiries quickly and correctly at the first point of asking – so if you are a first time buyer in Richmond, Teddington or Twickenham, or if you happen to know someone who is, please do feel welcome to contact us for advice and guidance – nothing gives us more pleasure.

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It is likely to spell a busy first quarter of 2025, as these cliff-edge stamp duty deadlines often do – and for better or worse, coming to its conclusion on March 31^st just as the spring market kicks into gear, a week before the all-important Easter break (from a property market point of view), and with an expectation that mortgage rates, along with the Bank of England base rate, will likely have come down a notch or two by that point, our view is that this first half of 2025 is going to paint the picture for the year as a whole, when we look back and pour over things in another twelve months’ time. 

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