• Close to one in three home hunters know the specific house or street they want to live in before starting a property search, according to new research by Zoopla
• Londoners are most likely to have a definite idea of location, virtually half (48%) have a specific street or house in mind. This compares to less than one in five across Wales and the South West
• If it’s not a specific street, then it’s most likely house hunters have an idea of what town they have in mind. A third of house hunters across the East of England, East Midlands, South East and Wales know which town or town(s) are of interest
• With just one in sixteen prospective home hunters having no clue as to their location of choice, as an agent, knowing the ins and outs of your local area is critical

• The UK has been crowned by Forbes, for the second year running, as the best country for business following its latest survey published in December 2018. A total of 161 countries are assessed on 15 different criteria.
• The UK is the only country to land among the top 30 in all 15 metrics, including property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, freedom and workforce.
• Forbes states that although sterling plummeted 9% against the US dollar the day after the EU referendum result and remains down, the economy has ‘held up relatively well’.
• With the official exit from the EU scheduled for this March, Forbes recognises that uncertainty remains. Some UK companies are holding off investments to see how Brexit affects trade relations, but on balance the business climate remains attractive, with a globalised economy that is more open than most in terms of trade, investments and capital flows.

• With renting offering more flexibility than ownership, some tenants have traditionally used the sector as a way to get to know a new area before committing to buying.
• Indeed, the majority of tenants stay within their local area when moving home.
• In 2018, over a quarter (27%) of tenants moved within a mile of their previous rental property, and two thirds (68%) stayed within ten miles.
• At the other end of the scale, 8.1% of tenants starting new tenancies in London in 2018 moved from overseas. Despite political and economic concerns, this is actually an increase from 7.3% in 2017.

• Brexit continues to make long-term and strategic decisions difficult for UK-based businesses and homeowners. Yet both the UK economy and its housing market registered around 3% annual growth in each of the first three quarters of 2018.
• Since the last troughs in GVA* in Quarter 4 2009 (Q409) and house prices (Q109), both indicators have risen a similar magnitude of 36% and 42% respectively. The relationship between the two indicators, using annual % change on a quarterly basis, suggests a correlation of some form does exist, with changes in house prices lagging by approximately three months.
• GVA recorded a slight uptick in annual change in Q318 (4%) yet Gross Domestic Product (another measure of economic performance) indicated that the economy was starting to slow.

• The consensus of economic forecasters (OBR, IMF, NIES and OE**) for total GDP growth in 2019 to 2022 is however positive at 7.2%, with 1.8% expected to be confirmed for 2018. Ernst and Young’s Regional and City Forecasts for GVA predict that London and the South East will continue to outperform in terms of annual GVA growth until at least 2020.
• *One widely used indicator of overall economic performance is ‘Gross Value Added (GVA)’. It measures the increase in the value of the economy due to the production of goods and services. ** Office for Budget Responsibility, International Monetary Fund, National Institute of Economic and Social Science, Oxford Economics.

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• Looking to sell in 2019? A property was sold somewhere across England and Wales every 9 seconds of working hours between January and July of 2018.
• With 10 regions in the country, assuming an even distribution, this would equate to a property sale in every region within a minute and a half period. However, with regional differences including the number of available properties and volume of housing stock, there are variations.
• In the South East and North West, a property was sold during every working minute of the day.
• In the North East where fewer properties are sold than in other, more densely populated regions, there was still a sale every 3 minutes