Approximately 9,000 homes are for sale across Northern Ireland as the demand from buyers and vendors to relocate after the Coronavirus lockdown continues.
The housing market in Northern Ireland reopened on Monday 15th June 2020 after a three-month pause.
Before the industry restarted, many estate agents throughout Northern Ireland worked remotely with members of the public who contacted agents through property portals, such as Propertynews.com, communicating their desire for socially distanced viewings.
In the six weeks that followed the reopening of the industry, estate agents have described record numbers of buyers hoping to view properties along with an increase in sales from vendors wanting to either trade up or downsize after the three-month shutdown.
Thousands have been visiting Propertynews.com to see what houses are available on the market. The website currently has over 9,000 residential properties listed for sale.
In the first 20 days of July, Propertynews.com witnessed a 22% increase in new residential sale houses uploaded to the website compared to the same time period in 2019.
Speaking with the Belfast Telegraph newspaper, Mark Reilly – Commercial Manager for Propertynews.com, highlighted: “”We are seeing extremely positive signs in the Northern Ireland property market and that July is continuing where June left off.
“We have seen a massive rise year-on-year in both traffic to the site and email enquiries on properties we have delivered to our estate agents.
“We have also seen a huge rise in new stock listed on site, with 22% more properties uploaded to date in July 2020 compared with the same month last year.”
Nick Finlay, Partner at the Enniskillen-based estate agency Montgomery Finlay & Co, has seen an increase in those looking to reside in County Fermanagh.
Many individuals have been working from home over the last number of months and it seems remote working is set to become the new norm for the foreseeable future. Mr Finlay says prospective purchasers are taking advantage of the new working arrangements.
“In recent weeks, even before the lockdown ended, we had a number of enquiries coming through from people working in Belfast, Dublin and England who are now planning to return home,” Mr Finlay said.
“This is because their jobs now enable them to work from home and the new flexibility has opened the door for them to return to places like Fermanagh for that specific reason.
“We have completed sales on several properties in the past few weeks. The main criteria is good internet speeds and phone signals so the big demand has been for new housing developments in the Enniskillen area.
“As more people work two or three days a week from home and are happy to commute for the remainder, they are availing of the value for money in the local property market and general lifestyle benefits of living away from the main cities.
“There was a pent-up demand during the lockdown and we are now seeing that come to fruition with the level of interest and number of new properties going online.”
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