Canterbury – Battle of the Postcodes?

I was asked last week if postcodes make a difference to property values. Well in swanky West London, the difference between SW3 and SW10 can make values drop or rise by thousands, even millions of pounds. However, in our city of Canterbury, we don’t have many Russian Oligarchs and Saudi Prince’s buying our properties. However, after doing some investigating, I did find out some interesting info.

The main postcode areas of the City are CT1 and CT2, with the most of villages to the East being CT3 and the villages to the South and West CT4. The postcode with the best performing housing market over the last 12 months has been the Eastern villages in CT3, with average values rising by 11.52%. However, in second and third come CT2 and CT1, with rises of 9.72% and 8.97% respectively in the same 12 month period with CT4 seeing more modest, yet still healthy rises of 8.85%. Look back at the areas over a longer period though and the differences aren’t so great. Over the last 5 years, values in the CT3 have risen by 21.28%, CT1 with a close second at 20.37% and CT2 20.17% and in a very respectful fourth, CT4 at 19.27%.

However, property values are only half the story when it comes to property investment. The average yields tell a slightly different story. CT1 has current average yields, based on what is on the market now at 4.66%, whilst CT2 has current average yields of 3.88%. As we go into the villages, CT3 conforms with the norm in that yields tend to be lower in the villages with an average yield of just 3.18%, as property values in villages, especially nice ones, tend go up very quickly, but the rents don’t correspondingly go up as much and CT4 has an even lower yield of 3.02% (but again as property values in CT4 are 21.9% higher than CT3 but rents are only 15.9% higher that would account for the slightly lower yield).

Therefore, if you are considering buying a property for investment in the near future, I am always happy to give you my considered opinion on which property to buy (or not as the case may be) to give you what you want from your investment (yield, capital growth or a bit of both). If you are a landlord, new or old, pop in and see us at our offices on Watling Street for a chat or email me direct on david.anthony@martinco.com