MSE News: House sales down 40% since boom

Former_MSE_Helen

"House sales have plummeted by almost 40% since the peak of the boom five years ago, says RICS ..."

Read the full story:
House sales down 40% since boom

aldredd

House sales have plummeted by almost 40% since the peak of the boom five years

Just over 15 completed sales were made per surveyor in the three months to May, a 40% drop on around 25 sales made over the same period in 2007

So is the 40% based purely on how many sales per surveyor?

If so, surely the headline figure assumes the same number of surveyors as 5 years ago?

If there are more surveyors now than then, then that figure could be grossly over-stated, equally, if there are less, then it would be understated, and could actually be worse than 40%

In short, a meaningless headline - unless you're a Surveyor!

Edit:
Based on how it's being reported elsewhere, this does indeed seem to be purely 'how many houses did each surveyor sell' - so pretty meaningless to everyone else.

Surveyors report big drop in home sales

The number of house sales handled by the average surveyor each month has dropped about 40 per cent since 2007

Rupert_Bear

Gone are the days when someone gave up work and bought a house one week to sale the next. In the long term a house will always be a good investment.

zappahey

aldredd wrote: »

So is the 40% based purely on how many sales per surveyor?

If so, surely the headline figure assumes the same number of surveyors as 5 years ago?

If there are more surveyors now than then, then that figure could be grossly over-stated, equally, if there are less, then it would be understated, and could actually be worse than 40%

In short, a meaningless headline - unless you're a Surveyor!

IIRC, RICS surveys are based on a sample of surveyors. If that sample size is consistent then it's a reasonable indicator of market trends.

I don't think RICS claims any more than that.

googler

Most of the surveyors round my way don't handle sales - just surveys.

The analysis for Scotland is generally based on the contributions of 10 or so Surveyors, again, not all of whom do sales. This seems to me not to form a large enough sample size for the country as a whole.... suggesting the report may be less than accurate

aldredd

zappahey wrote: »

IIRC, RICS surveys are based on a sample of surveyors. If that sample size is consistent then it's a reasonable indicator of market trends.

I don't think RICS claims any more than that.

You're possibly right. Although, they do give the specific number of house sales (51,823) which would suggest they're looking at the complete picture.

danothy

zappahey wrote: »

IIRC, RICS surveys are based on a sample of surveyors. If that sample size is consistent then it's a reasonable indicator of market trends.

I don't think RICS claims any more than that.

Consistent sample size would only be valid if the market share of each surveyor was constant between surveys ... if the sample size was a constant proportion of every surveyor then it would be representative, otherwise a change in the number of surveyors overall may alter the market share of those surveyed and make the inferences about the level of work they are seeing not related to the amount of work in the market.