I hope everyone had a good Easter despite the difficult circumstances.
I thought last week’s analysis of Land Registry data from CashLady was revealing.
Between December 2009 and December 2019 the biggest price rises were in Harlow, Essex (74.92%), followed by Southend-on-Sea (74.85%), Watford (74.75%), Thurrock (73.20%) and Cambridge (73.03%).
If prices rose at the same rate this decade, in Harlow they would average at £507,387 by 2030.
Now I don’t know if you’ve spent much time in Harlow, but it doesn’t seem sensible to cost more than half a million pounds to buy there.
Perhaps the silver lining from this COVID-19 pandemic is house prices will stay at sensible levels for longer, which helps those who aren’t already on the ladder.
The common thread with all the highest growth areas in the past decade is they are all in the South of England – so much for the Northern Powerhouse eh?
Well actually most of the crazy ‘house price growth’ surrounding London and the South East happened in the first half of the decade.
In October 2013 for example Rightmove reported that £50,000 had been added to the typical London house price in a single month.
After the global financial crisis the South of England was first to recover and then got overly competitive, before conditions like Brexit uncertainty slowed things down.
Recent editions of Zoopla’s City House Price Index suggests economic growth has become more balanced.
February’s edition of the report shows that annual house price growth leads the way in Nottingham (3.8%), Leicester (3.6%) and Edinburgh (3.4%).
With our current crisis situation where it’s speculated that house prices could fall, the question is whether there are areas that are overvalued.
Those with long memories will remember that housing was particularly overvalued in Northern Ireland prior to the global financial crisis.
Activity around the capital tends to be more robust however, so it doesn’t seem likely prices in the South will fall off a cliff.
Hopefully this coming decade will see more balanced, slow and steady growth across much of the UK, once we get over our current bump in the road.
Ryan Bembridge, Editor, PropertyWire
