MPowered Mortgages House Pace Index, which surveyed 4,000 adults, found that 31 per cent of properties receive an offer within an hour of a viewing in 2022, which is four times the seven per cent recorded in 2018.
The report noted that 48 per cent of properties received an offer in a day, which is up from 26 per cent in 2018.
Around 12 per cent of properties got an offer without a viewing, which is up from seven per cent in 2018.
Market conditions, govt intervention, urgency upped
MPowered Mortgages suggested that the buying behaviour could be motivated by market conditions, government intervention in the housing market and increased consumer urgency to buy now.
The report found that 38 per cent of properties that have been on the market in the past five years got an offer within the same day of a viewing, but only 14 per cent secured an offer on the second viewing.
MPowered Mortgages said that the trends was more prevalent in London, with 37 per cent of properties receiving an offer on the same day.
Younger people aged 18 to 34 are more likely to adopt this approach, with 11 per cent saying they had made an offer on a property they hadn’t seen. This compares to five per cent of those aged 35 to 54.
The report suggested that as the average age of a first-time buyer was 34, the decision to make an offer without seeing a property could be down to inexperience along with fewer mortgage deals available.
Buyers see an average of three properties before making an offer and 40 per cent of buyers see only two properties before finding a home.
Gazumping, chain breaks and survey issues
However, the report found that half of buyers have an offer fall through, with the most common reasons cited including receiving a higher offer, problems appearing in the survey and a break in the chain.
Another factor was buyers not being able to secure mortgages, with 10 per cent of offers falling through due to this.
Over half of sellers added that they insisted first-time buyers should have a mortgage in principle before they accepted their offer.
Stuart Cheetham (pictured), CEO of MPowered Mortgages, said that it was seeing lots of activity in the market as buyers race to lock in deals as mortgage rates rise rapidly.
He said the data showed that offers were being made “extremely quickly” despite a large proportion of them falling through.
Cheetham said that the report showed “changing consumer behaviour against a backdrop of rising mortgage rates and aims to prompt more consideration in the house buying process”.
He continued: “The race to find a home can be a daunting prospect even more so now in an environment where mortgage rates are rising as part of the cost of living. Of the many hurdles a homebuyer faces, one element that can be largely controlled is the certainty of their mortgage and this will be even more important as rates continue to rise.”
