Property Buyers’ Activity Increases by 27% in January 2012

According to the latest research performed by one of the British property websites, UK would-be buyers are searching for property but sellers are being cautious.

In the first 10 days of 2012, there were over 44 million property-related searches on the web. This is almost 30% more than at the same time last year.

However, UK estate agents are selling not more than 1 new property a week.

Commenting on the findings, authors of the research said that "the market is stuck in a low transaction volume pit that will be hard to escape from without the mortgage funding to satisfy what appears to be strong pent-up demand."

The winners of the property market in 2012 are expected to be those with large deposits and homeowners with enough equity looking to remortgage.

As for sellers, "the increased market fragmentation caused by the credit crunch means that success in selling now requires a very careful and complex micro-market analysis, rather than a wishful price-punt to see what happens."