Canterbury’s continuing housing shortage is putting the City’s
(and the Country’s) repute as a nation of homeowners ‘under threat’, as the
number of houses being built continues to be woefully inadequate in meeting the
ever demanding needs of the growing population in the City. In
fact, I was talking to my parents the other day at a family get together; the
subject of the Canterbury Property market came up in the conversation (as I am
sure it does at many family parties in Canterbury) after the weather and
politics. My parents said it used to be that if you went out to work and did
the right thing, you would expect that relatively quickly over the course of
your career you would be buying a house, you would go on holiday every year, and
you would save for a pension. But now things seem to have changed?
Back in the autumn, George Osborne, used the Autumn
Statement to double the housing budget to £2bn a year from April 2018 in an
attempt to increase supply and deliver 100,000 new homes each year until
2020. The Chancellor also introduced a
series of initiatives to help get first time buyers on the housing ladder,
including the contentious Help to Buy Scheme and extending Right to Buy from
not just Council tenants, but to Housing Association tenants as well.
Now that does all sound rather good, but the Country is only
building 137,490 properties a year (split down 114,250 built by private
builders, 21,560 built by Housing Associations and a paltry 1,680 council
houses). If you
look at the graph (courtesy of ONS), you will see nationally, the last time the
country was building 230,000 houses a year was in the 1960’s.
How George is going to almost double house building overnight, I don’t know, because using the analogy of a greengrocers; if people want to buy more apples (i.e. houses) in a greengrocers’ shop, giving them more money (i.e. with the Help to Buy scheme) when there's not enough apples in the first place doesn't really help.
Looking at the Canterbury house building figures, in the
local authority area as a whole, only 260 properties were built in the last 12
months, split down into 250 privately built properties and 10 housing
association with not one council house being built. This is
simply not enough and the shortage of supply has meant Canterbury property
values have continued to rise, meaning they are 8.4% higher than 12 months ago,
rising 0.7% in the last month alone.
I was taught at school (all those years ago!), that it is
all about supply and demand, this economics game. The demand
for Canterbury property has been particularly strong for properties in the good
areas of the City and it is my considered opinion that it is likely to continue
this year, driven by growing demand among buyers (both Canterbury homebuyers
and Canterbury landlords alike). You see Canterbury’s economy is quite varied,
meaning activity is expected to remain relatively strong into the early summer
of 2016, especially as some Canterbury buy to let landlords try to complete
purchases ahead of the introduction of new stamp duty rules in April.
.. and of supply, well we have spoken about the lack of new
building in the City holding things back, but there is another issue relating
to supply. Of the existing properties already built, the
concern is the number of properties on the market and for sale. The
number of properties for sale last month in Canterbury was 289, whilst 6 months
ago, that figure was 315, whilst three years ago it stood at 487… a massive
drop!
With demand for Canterbury property rising, minimal new
homes being built and less properties coming onto the market, that can only
mean one thing ... now is a good time to be a homeowner or landlord in Canterbury. For
more articles like this, please visit the Canterbury Property Market Blog www.canterburypropertyblog.com
No comments:
Post a Comment