The U.K.’s supply of new housing stock rose 43.3% in March compared to the same time last year, according to data from real estate agency HouseSimple.
A total of 67,931 new properties were listed last month across the 100 major U.K. towns and cities that HouseSimple analyzed, compared to 47,413 in March 2017.
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The cause of the large annual rise—or more accurately, the cause of last March’s dearth of new listings—can be blamed on Brexit, according to Wednesday’s report. In March 2017, the same month that Prime Minister Theresa May triggered the Brexit-inducing Article 50, the number of new properties listed fell 27.7% compared to February 2017 as confidence in the market was affected by worries around the formal invoking of the region’s exit from the European Union.
This year, the number of new listings remained almost steady, rising just 1.1% from February, according to the report.
Chichester, a city in West Sussex, England, saw the biggest rise in new property listings in March, up 47.1% from February.
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Durham in North East England followed, with a 32.9% increase in new housing stock while Bootle in Merseyside saw listings rise 29.4% from February.
In London, new property listings rose 4.4% in March compared to February.
"Although the early spring market was disrupted by some pretty awful weather in March, now the snow has melted, the next couple of months are set to be a very busy period," said Sam Mitchell, CEO of House Simple, in the report.
"Seller activity has already picked up noticeably since Easter, and in the current buyer’s market, the successful seller will be the one who stands out from the crowd," he noted, "whether that’s pricing their property realistically or offering a superior product to the market."