Brexit uncertainty stalls nearly a million house moves*

Uncertainty surrounding when the UK will leave the European Union, and the terms of its departure, is impacting people’s decisions to move home. According new research**, ongoing uncertainty around how Brexit will play out has caused 937,000 Brits to delay moving home.

The research, commissioned by GoCompare, found that in the last three years, 1.5 million people have delayed the decision to move home. When asked what caused them to put their plans on ice, most (60%) blamed Brexit.
Other reasons people gave for postponing a house move included a lack of funds (33%), difficulty in obtaining a high enough mortgage (14%), affordability of housing in the area in which they would like to move (14%) and, concerns over job security (12%).

While Brexit was the top answer for both men and women, men were much more likely to blame EU exit uncertainty (68%) than women (48%), while women were more concerned about a lack of funds (43%) than men (25%).
Women were also much more likely than men to have delayed a home-move because of high property prices in the area they’d like to live (22% compared with 8% for men), or because job uncertainty (22% for women compared with 6% for men).

Ryan Fulthorpe, spokesperson for GoCompare Home Insurance commented, “While there’s been much debate about how the UK’s departure from the EU will affect the economy and housing market – the full impact of Brexit is still a complete unknown. So, it’s understandable that the continued uncertainty surrounding when and how the UK will leave the EU is causing many people to put-off big financial commitments such as moving house.

“While some potential home buyers have decided to wait and see how Brexit pans-out, there are many who will want to get moving. Buying a home is a big financial commitment. In addition to the purchase price of the property, there are several up-front costs people need to ensure they have covered - these include stamp duty, survey and valuation fees, legal and estate agent fees. To help homebuyers total up these upfront costs, GoCompare has produced a cost of moving calculator.”

The GoCompare cost of moving calculator: https://www.gocompare.com/mortgages/cost-of-moving/

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For further information please contact:

Anders Nilsson or Louisa Marsden at GoCompare on 01633 654 054 / 01633 655 132

Gordon, Jason or Liz at MAW Communications on 01603 505 845

Keep up-to-date with GoCompare on Twitter; @GoCompare

Notes to editors
*Source: ‘Dwelling stock estimates Great Britain’ ONS - there are 17,345,00 homeowners in Great Britain. 9% of people have delayed the decision to move, which equates to 1,561,050 homeowners. 60% of 1,561,050 is 936,630 rounded-up to 937,000.

**On 13 May 2019, Bilendi conducted an online survey among 2,004 randomly selected British adults who are Maximiles UK panellists. The margin of error-which measures sampling variability-is +/- 2.2%. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and regional data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of United Kingdom. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

GoCompare

GoCompare is a comparison website that enables people to compare the costs and features of a wide variety of insurance policies, financial products and energy tariffs.

GoCompare does not charge people to use its services, and it does not accept advertising or sponsored listings, so all product comparisons are unbiased. GoCompare makes its money through fees paid by the providers of products that appear on its various comparison services when a customer buys through the site.

GoCompare does not sell its customers’ data.

When it launched in 2006, it was the first comparison site to focus on displaying policy details rather than just listing prices, with the aim of helping people to make better-informed decisions when buying their insurance. GoCompare has remained dedicated to helping people choose the most appropriate products rather than just the cheapest, and has teamed up with Defaqto, the independent financial researcher, to integrate additional policy information into a number of its insurance comparison services. This allows people to compare up to an extra 30 features of cover.

GoCompare is the only comparison website to be invited to join the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

For more information visit www.gocompare.com and www.gocomparegroup.com