Agent is hopeful as home sales resume

Friday 13th February 2009, 2:29PM GMT.

ONE estate agent is cautiously optimistic for the year ahead.

Swoffers local market director Spencer Noyon (pictured) said the company had so far seen almost 30 sales agreed so far this year.

‘While 2008 was a year of stability, there certainly appears to be more confidence in the market now,’ he said.

Local housing prices for quarter four of 2008, released this week by the Policy Council, stood at £342,000 – a 2.7% decrease on the previous quarter, but an overall annual increase of 3.3%.

‘Clearly people are feeling that after a quiet time taking stock of what has happened in the financial world, now is the right time to act,’ he said.

Mr Noyon said that in the same way as average house prices rose steeply towards the end of last year with a high volume of large sales, there was now a slight fall in the average because of the number of flats being sold.

The average price of an apartment increased 14.4% on the previous quarter and made up 27% of all local market sales during the three-month period.

View more: Local Market news, Open Market news, Spencer Noyon news, Swoffers news.

1
Frank

February 14, 2009 at 9:51 am

Rightly or wrongly I do not share Mr Noyon’s optimism. Guernsey stlll has some catching up to do recession wise – it has been proved in the past that there is a time lag before the effects of a UK recession reach our shores.

It’s wrong for people in his position to talk up the market and raise false hopes – it only encourages overpricing and market stagnation.

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2
Bert

February 16, 2009 at 7:35 pm

Just totally unrealistic.

On the mainland, we have banks like the RBS and Bradford and Bingley nationalised and the Lloyds Banking Group on the brink of following suit.

Despite that we’re supposed to believe that the major problems in the banking industry aren’t going to adversely affect the price of housing on the island.

I’d agree with Frank’s comment. The island is about 3-4 months behind economic events on the mainland and to pretend that the local market is going to do well in 2009 is just whistling in the wind.

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