Meet The Team: Rosie Spours, Branch manager, Alnwick

Our residential teams across the North of England and North Yorkshire have experienced the most resilient market for years. Rosie Spours, Alnwick Branch Manager and Valuer has worked in residential sales for over 10 years. Here she talks about the current market conditions for buyers in Northumberland and tells us a little bit about herself.

What have been the most surprising changes to date this year?

Higher end properties have really dominated the local market these past 12 months. The demand for larger homes with lots of outdoor space, of which we have a lot in Northumberland, has hit an all time high. Land Registry shows that across the past year the average sale price of property in Northumberland rose by £27,000.  And let’s not forget the staycation boom! We live in a beautiful part of the country which has always been popular with tourists but the exponential demand for holiday accommodation has resulted in an increasing need for holiday lets, with coastal areas seeing the biggest demand.

In June, Northumberland was beating the rest of the UK as a whole, with a 5.9% increase, as opposed to the 4.5% seen across the UK as a whole.

How do you see the property market in the North East going forwards?

I believe sales transactions will remain buoyant with there still being such high buyer demand. Commuting areas were always previously the bread winners but with more and more flexibility in working hours and the ability for many to carry on working from home demand for rural properties with room for home offices is not slowing down yet.

What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced, as a result of the pandemic?

As with most things, the residential market was stopped in it’s tracks by covid. We not only had to adapt to the changes it imparted on us personally but also maintain and successfully adapt the natural activities an agent would undertake. Little did we know it would result in the skyrocketing of the housing market but having genuinely local people with expert local knowledge really enabled us to spring into action once the market opened back up.