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Buying a home in an English market town costs £25,000 more, new research shows
House prices in market towns in England are on average £24,766 or 12% higher than their county average, according to research from Lloyds Bank. Two out of three market towns in England have an average house price that is above their county average. Beaconsfield in South Buckinghamshire has the largest house price premium with homes trading at 156% or £501,648 above the county average. Wetherby has the next highest premium with prices 99% or £157,016 above the West Yorkshire average, followed by Bakewell in the Derbyshire Peaks at 88% or £147,224. Overall one in eight market towns in the survey have a house price premium of at least £100,000 and 10 of the most expensive market towns are in southern England. Beaconsfield is also the most expensive English market town with an average house price of £822,753. Petersfield in Hampshire at £402,216 and Cranbrook in Kent at £393,778 are the next most expensive market towns in England. Outside southern England, Bakewell is the most expensive market town with an average property value of £314,966. Three of the top five least expensive market towns are in County Durham. Ferryhill has an average house price of £85,763, followed by Crook at £106,591 and Stanhope at £128,114. The other towns include Immingham at £110,565 and Tickhill at £133,550. ‘Market towns are important hubs of social interaction and cohesion, as well as providers of employment and support for local business. Market towns are also, in most cases, very attractive places to live,’ said Andy Hulme, mortgages director at Lloyds Bank. ‘This is reflected in the majority of market towns having higher property prices than their surrounding counties, a premium that increased in the past decade,’ he explained. He pointed out that home buyers continue to be attracted to the high quality of life, architecture, history, setting and community spirit offered by market towns and are prepared to pay a premium to live there. The research also shows that the average house price in market towns across England has risen by £60,586 or 34% from £179,535 in 2004 to £240,121 in 2014. This is equivalent to an average rise of £505 per month over the past decade. Two market towns have seen house prices grow by more than 50% since 2004. The biggest increase in prices over the past decade was in Ferryhill where the average price rose by 76% from £48,743 to £85,763. Ferryhill is followed by Saffron Walden in Essex at 59%, Lewes on the south coast at 48%, then Beaconsfield, Midhurst in West Sussex, Berwick upon Tweed and Yately in Hampshire all 47%. Nine out of 10 market towns have seen prices rise since the bottom of the housing market in 2009. Contrary to the decade as whole, it has been market towns in the south that have performed best in the past few years. Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire recorded the largest price growth in the past five years at 37%, followed by Saffron Walden at 36% and Yateley at 36%. The average… Continue reading
US homes market experiencing a shortage of properties for sale at lower end
More higher priced homes in the US are being put up for sale but there is still a shortage of lower priced homes on the market, new research suggests. Buyers searching for homes will find more homes for sale overall, but supply of lower priced homes is growing more slowly than high priced homes in most of the country, according to the latest home value index from Zillow. Overall, median home values rose 6.4% from October 2013 and 0.4% from September. Both monthly and annual home value gains were well below the faster paces recorded earlier in the year. Rising inventory and slowing home value growth are two signs that the housing market is beginning to level off across the nation. As the market has cooled, buyers looking for less expensive homes did find some relief in the hottest metro areas, including San Diego, Los Angeles and the Bay Area. In San Francisco, the number of low priced homes on the market rose by 39% but there were fewer high priced homes on the market. While inventory was still tight there in October, the homes that were available spread evenly across the price spectrum. National rents were up 3.5% in October from a year ago. Month on month national rents were flat compared with September. Inventory of all homes nationwide rose by 15.8% year on year. A breakdown of the figures shows that in the bottom home price market it increased by 68.3% while in the top home price tier it rose 82.2%. In Denver, there were almost four times as many homes available for sale in the upper price tier, that is homes priced at $357,900 or more, than there were homes priced in the lowest price tier at less than $219,000. The same was true in many other markets. Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix and Nashville had at least two times more homes for sale in the top tier than the bottom tier. In 25 of the 35 largest metros analysed there were more homes for sale this October than last October in all three price tiers. In 14 of those metros, the increase in number of homes for sale was in the double digits in all price tiers. ‘Depending on their finances, it's likely that individual buyers in the same market might be having completely different home buying experiences. Even as conditions improve for buyers overall, it remains a tough row to hoe for first time buyers and lower income buyers, especially compared to their more well off contemporaries,’ said Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries. Continue reading
Councils in England urged to sell off high value properties to fund more affordable homes
Councils in England should sell vacant buildings and reinvest the money in more affordable homes, according to a government minister. Too many are sitting on multi million pound vacant houses yet the sale of just one high value council house could help fund more affordable house building, increase supply and reduce social housing waiting lists, said Communities Secretary Eric Pickles. He said such a move is part of the government’s long term economic plan to get Britain building and is the latest in a number of measures taken since 2010 to make the best possible use of social housing. Social housing waiting lists have halved since 2010 but Pickles believes that new rules could bring this down even further and from next April, councils will be required to publish the most recent valuation of their social housing stock, annually to ensure it is being put to best use. The information will be published by postcode, listing how much the properties are worth, how many are occupied and how many are standing empty. Pickles explained that this will give people the information they need to ask questions of how their council is managing stock and how selling more expensive properties could provide the funds for councils to build more homes and reduce waiting times. Councils could also sell their higher value empty properties, releasing more money for house building without affecting existing tenants’ rights. And with the numbers of empty homes down by 160,000 since the end of 2009 to a 10 year low, this could reduce the numbers of empty properties even further. For example, Southwark council were able to sell off one of their council homes for a staggering £3 million, helping to fund the building of 20 new properties across the borough. Pickles argued that other councils across the country could follow suit, potentially helping thousands of families by selling their higher value vacant homes. ‘Councils across the country are sitting on millions of pounds which could be put to far better use and get them building elsewhere in the area. This would allow more families to come off social housing waiting lists and get into homes,’ said Pickles. ‘Instead of holding that money as equity in expensive empty properties, the councils should sell up those vacant buildings and reinvest the money to get the country building,’ he added. He pointed out that through the government’s Affordable Homes Programme some £19.5 billion public and private funding has been invested in affordable house building, with a further £23.3 billion investment planned from 2015 to 2018. Over 200,000 new affordable homes have been delivered since 2010. House building is a key part of the government’s long term economic plan and since 2010 a range of measures have been taken to ensure the best possible use of social housing. Continue reading
