The latest of Bradford & Bingley's HOME reports has been published, charting a range of behavioral trends amongst property buyers and sellers. We take a look at some of the findings and try to look past the numbers to see what we can learn from them.

Up to a point, it holds true that the more expensive the property, the higher the number of buyers that will be in the market. Right across the country, this trend only starts to reverse where properties worth more than £300,000. The highest demand for properties is in the South East within the 250k - 300k price band, with a phenomenal 16 buyers registered for every home for sale.

In most regions, the proportion of buyers to properties has increased in the last 3 months. In Scotland, the ratio has doubled to 8:1 from 4:1 this time a year ago and it is also rising rapidly again in the South East with the number of buyers per property up 35 percent since the last report just 3 months ago.

Given the increasing number of buyers in the market shown above, it would be reasonable to assume that properties would be getting snapped up almost the instant that they are coming onto the market.

However this is not necessarily the case. It seems that unusually, increased demand is not the cause of the high number of buyers in the market, and nor is a lack of buyers the reason for properties remaining unsold for long periods. The surprise driver for both these phenomenon is in fact a newfound caution amongst those buyers in the market for a purchase.

The buying frenzy that has historically accompanied such high buyer-to-seller ratios appears to be absent from the current market participants. The survey points out that cautious and price sensitive buyers are much more willing to stay in the market until they find the right property at the right price. Today's buyer is more inclined to take time over the decision and look more thoroughly before committing to buy.

The 'time taken to sell' a property is the length of time from when a seller puts the property on the market to the time when the buyer's solicitors are instructed to proceed. Nationally, the time taken from placing a property on the market to agreeing a sale is ten or eleven weeks, one week slower than in October last year.

Whilst the national average may be as high as 11 weeks before a property is sold, clearly this does not apply everywhere. Some areas do seem to enjoy lightening fast sales with some localised averages as low as 3 or even just 2 weeks. So what are the factors that cause some areas to be so much easier to sell in than others. The simple answer is desirability. The factors cited in the report, which concur with the factors we recommend you consider when buying a property include:

• The quality of local schooling
• Range of local amenities
• Selection and range of available properties
• Ease of access to local, national and international transport links
• Proximity to regional centres of employment

There is little correlation between the average length of time a property takes to sell and the average number of viewings to achieve the same thing.

In general, vendors in Scotland and the South East are kept most busy by buyers wishing to view their properties. This is unsurprising in the South East, where there is a high number of buyers in the market and the 10 week average selling time in the region. It is slightly more surprising in Scotland, where there are often less than 5 and sometimes as few as 2 buyers in the market for each property. This may be down to the differences in the homebuying process north of the border.

Nationally, properties are selling for an average of 96 percent of the original asking price. The reason that Scottish properties are sold for more is also down to differences in the homebuying process, rather than serial gazumping or desperately over-eager buyers.

The figures show clearly that vendors are beginning to achieve a slightly lower proportion of their asking price. There are various reasons why this could be happening. It could be a hangover from the rapid price rises of last year, with vendors putting their properties on the market failing at slightly unreasonable levels given the cooling deman. It could also be the increased caution amongst buyers resulting in longer periods before a property is sold, something which often causes vendors to drop their price.

From a vendor's perspective, it shows the importance of setting the price properly, especially if you are in a hurry to sell. But from the buyer's point of view, it highlights the siginificance of the opening offer - don't rush in at the asking price, as most vendors are not managing to sell for anywhere near that much. Such pearls of wisdom should be used in conjunction with good local knowledge mind you - if you are buying in one of the areas with an average selling time off two weeks, the chances are that the percentage of the asking price achieved is likely to be higher as well.

You can download the full version of the report in Adobe Acrobat format directly from the Bradford & Bingley. right click the link to save it to your hard drive or click to load it into your browser:

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