In our new series of trend reports, our founders, Albert Hill and Matt Gibberd, will be sharing their findings and insights from the worlds of homebuying, interiors and the property market. Here, Albert Hill reports on market news and home trends he’s noticing in Spring 2019.

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April has been busy. One of the busiest months that The Modern House has ever experienced, in fact. You don’t need us to tell you that there have been certain challenges in the market (we won’t mention the B-word) but what we are seeing is that if you have a great place, and you price it attractively, there are plenty of people out there willing to pay good money for a fantastic home.

So far in 2019, 27% of the homes that we’ve sold have gone for over their asking price, which is incredible if you consider the rather long-faced reports appearing in the traditional property press. We think this figure proves there is still a big appetite out there for better spaces.

To be honest, we’re rather pleased that the ‘froth has been blown off the market’, to use a popular property industry euphemism. This means that people are looking at the things that matter – the space, the light, the design – rather than how much prices might escalate over the next few months. This rather more long-term, deep-thinking approach to homebuying seems to suit the sort of houses and apartments that we sell. The ‘flight to quality’ is the phrase that we’ve been hearing, and seeing, it seems.

One of the spaces that we have sold recently that exemplifies this perfectly is a wonderful John Penn-designed house on the beach at Shingle Street, Suffolk. We always knew that such a rare, beautifully-designed home would attract a lot of interest, but even we were a little taken aback by the staggering amount of enquires. With places like this local prices go out of the (floor-to-ceiling) window, and we had multiple offers and a lot of disappointed parties – sadly, there can only ever be one buyer. This was just another example of the fact that whilst some are loudly weeping over the wayward actions of our politicians, others are quietly getting on and acquiring great houses.

We have always sold a lot of artfully-converted period houses but we seem to have had a particular demand in the old-meets-new genre recently, with Canonbury Grove, Arlington Avenue, Oldfield Road, Glenshaw Mansions and Harrow Road all sold in recent months. Perhaps there’s something soothing in a façade that’s been there for centuries, or perhaps period features – cornicing, fireplaces, flooring – are timelessly attractive.

And, whilst we’re on the subject, it’s fascinating to see Classicism increasingly creeping back into today’s design language for the first time since the heyday of Post Modernism. Although we sadly didn’t get to make it to the recent Milan Furniture Fair (as we said, it’s been far too busy in the UK this April) we have heard numerous mentions of fluted columns, antique busts and liberal quantities of marble.

The best young architects too, seem to be channelling Palladio with a rise in symmetry, refined detailing and elegant proportions. We think this harking back to the past (even if today’s architects always like to add a pointed contemporary twist – such as a flash of saturated colour) might be something to do with the ingrained humanity in these Classical buildings. In a world increasingly (over) designed by machines, the beauty and simplicity of the ancient Golden Ratio shines through.

Machines are also making their presence felt in the increasingly loud discussions about how properties will be bought and sold in the future. One of the most successful recent start-ups (if you judge success by how much venture capital backing they have, which you probably shouldn’t!) in the so-called ‘PropTech’ field is GeoPhy, which builds AVMs (Automated Valuation Models). Such investment is indicative of the drive to make buildings, land and homes easily valued by algorithms, with the theory being that it would take risk and time out of the process of investing in property.

Algorithms, however, aren’t humans. They haven’t lived on land, worked in buildings or experienced spaces so they just can’t appreciate the nuances of one place over another in the way that humans can. There is a rather chilling idea emerging from the US PropTech world of ‘Track Homes’, which describes houses being built to certain size criteria, in areas with certain location characteristics being marketed to a pre-defined audience. These are homes designed for algorithms, homes where all quirks that might skew data have been, as far as possible, engineered out. We all recognise that the way that homes are transacted needs improving but the PropTech world ought to realise that you can’t reduce homes down to data. And, in any case, why would you want to?

What, I wonder, would an algorithm make of the fantastic seaside cottage that we recently sold near Skegness, Lincolnshire? This is an area, data would suggest, that is far from being a property hotspot. But buyers saw the house for what it was: a charismatic building, wonderfully refurbished, right beside the water. So, data, with all its reductive tendencies, was forgotten and we had multiple bids, further proving that our buyers overlook postcodes and take a place on its merits, which in this case were abundant.

A little less surprising than the queues that formed in Lincolnshire was the interest in a sprawling, well-designed country home we sold near Bruton. Everyone is aware of how Somerset has been increasing in popularity in recent years, with Bruton and Frome proving particularly attractive.

In London, we are seeing an upsurge in activity in areas beyond the more established parts of Hackney and Dalston, where prices seem to have settled (at least for the time being). Wanstead and Forest Gate – anything with an E7 postcode in particular – is where the most interesting new projects that we are being called out to seem to be. Buyers are also looking west again – with Bayswater in particular attracting attention – as recent price drops there, as opposed to rises in the east, are making people see value in what are great, established areas of the capital.