With two new ministers running housing policy in England, I thought it would be useful to see how different the property markets they are used to are.
And you probably couldn’t get more different markets!
Mr Robert Jenrick is just 37 and unlike many people, doesn’t just own one, but several properties – including ones in London, reported to be worth millions.
He looks after my one of my nearest towns: Newark which is on the tip of Nottinghamshire, surrounded mostly by Lincolnshire.
Newark itself is a lovely market town that sits on the river Trent, overlooked by a beautiful old castle ruin. The town has great amenities, including all the shops you could wish for, from Aldi to Waitrose.
The connections to the rest of the UK and beyond are superb – just over an hour from London on the East Coast Line and easy access to the A1. There is even the ‘Robin Hood’ airport nearby to take you to popular holiday destinations. Nearby cities are Lincoln, Nottingham and Doncaster.
One of the reasons I moved nearby to Newark are the cracking property prices and the ability to have a rural lifestyle with easy access to amenities and in particular to the likes of London.
Here’s a snapshot of the local property price annual performance since 2000:
What this shows is that taking today’s prices back to 2000 and the area has achieved similar rates to the rest of the UK of around 6%. However, since then, property prices have hardly risen with annual averages of just 1-2% since 2005 and the market highs of 2007.
However, year on year, the market has recovered a little with strong price growth around the historic average of 6%.
Source: Land Registry
In the past, the biggest year on year rise was in April 2003 when prices rose by an enormous 46.2% in just one year, contributing massively to the annual increase of 6% since 2000.
Prices dropped in the recession at a similar rate to the rest of the country: around 18%. They have now recovered and are actually 16% higher than they were at the height of the market before the credit crunch: 12 years ago.
Other interesting data shows that prices fell for 1 year and 8 months, taking 6.6 years to recover to their original height in 2007.
Although the ‘average price’ in Newark is £186,653, this masks two and three bed homes available for under £100,000. However, at the higher end there are also some beautiful country mansions available for under £1mn.
Thanks to Belvoir Newark, here’s the latest data on how affordable rents are in the area – with two bed houses available from £550 to £575 per month:-
Allison Emms of Newark has reported flat rents stayed static due to the oversupply of one beds. However, house rents have increased over Q2 2019, especially on the standard two/three bed semi but larger properties have remained the same. Tenant demand was static for flats but increased for houses. Looking to the next quarter, rents and demand are likely to remain static for flats but increase for houses. There is a shortage of two and three bed houses due to landlords selling up, as this is the stock they are selling. Alison also commented the market is still a little quiet for this time of year, but not just for them and is concerned there are still agents in breach of ASA rulings and advertising pre June tenant fees.
Esther McVey and although she looks after a different area some distance away, we were born in the same year! She took over Tatton from George Osborne.
The local market has performed very well since 2000 – with annual average growth of property prices similar to Newark and the rest of the UK of 6% per annum. This has then fallen to 1-2.5% since 2005 and the recession.
Currently prices are up year on year at around 5%.
Source: Land Registry
However, although the price growth is similar to Newark, that’s where this ends with average prices 45% higher at £231,000.
The biggest year of house price growth was in May 2003, when prices rose in just one year by 34%.
During the recession prices fell for a similar amount of time to Newark: 20 months but recovered a little quicker, within six years and three months. However prices did fall less than the national average, at just 15.57%.
Yes there are few properties available for under £100,000, some are flats, some park homes and a few houses. However, the key to this area is it is on the edge of ‘footballers territory’, with many mansions available for over £2 million!
Two bed properties are typically renting for a lot more than Newark at around £800 to £900 a month and there are also plenty of ‘posh places’ to rent in excess of £1,400 per month.
So there you have it – the tale of our two new housing ministers property markets!
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