Locks Heath homeowners will be among those affected by the latest rise in the Bank of England interest rates. The first increase in 10 years; they have just been raised from 0.25 percent to 0.5 per cent. This uplift comes as inflation hits a 51-month high of 2.9 per cent whilst the national unemployment rate is at an all-time low of 4.3 per cent.

Interestingly, the Governor of the Bank of England has indicated that the interest rate is likely to increase again over the next couple of years, but Mr Carney said mortgages and savings would not be affected in the short term. However, look at all the big banks and just about all of them have increased their standard variable mortgage rate.

The average Locks Heath mortgage is £124,924

I have to ask by how much Locks Heath homeowners (on variable rate or tracker mortgages) will see their repayments increase?

In the SO31 postcode there are 7,619 homeowners with a mortgage, of which 3,273 have a variable rate mortgage (the remaining have fixed rate mortgages).  The total amount owed by those SO31 homeowners with those variable rate mortgages is £408,892,681, meaning the average monthly mortgage payment for those home owners on variable rate mortgages before the interest rate rise was £974.06 per month and now its £1,000.09 per month… meaning

The interest rate rise will cost Locks Heath homeowners on average an extra £312.31 per year

Whilst this is the first raise in interest rates in over 10 years, it must be noted it is at a significantly low level compared to figures in the 1970s and early 1990s.  Many of my readers talk of interest rates at 17 per cent when Sir Geoffrey Howe increased them to try and combat the hyperinflation (from the fallout of the financial crisis that hit Britain in the 1970’s) and Norman Lamont in September 1992 with the infamous Black Wednesday crisis, when interest rates were raised from 10% to 15% in just one day.

So, what will this interest rate actually do to the Locks Heath housing market?

Well, if I’m being frank, not a great deal. The proportion of Locks Heath homeowners with variable rate mortgages (and thus directly affected by a Bank of England rate rise) will be smaller than in the past, in part because the vast majority of new mortgages in recent years were taken on fixed interest rates.  The proportion of outstanding mortgages on variable rates has fallen to a record low of 42.3 per cent, down from a peak of 72.9 per cent in the autumn of 2011.

If more Locks Heath people are protected from interest rate rises, because they are on a fixed rate mortgage, then there is less chance of those Locks Heath people having to sell their Locks Heath properties because they can’t afford the monthly repayments or even worse case scenario, have them repossessed.

However, and this will be of interest to both Locks Heath homeowners and Locks Heath buy to let landlords…

 For every 1% increase in the Bank of England interest rate, it will cost the average Locks Heath homeowner on a variable rate mortgage £104.10 per month

So, what next?  Because UK inflation levels are at 2.9 per cent (the country’s highest rate since April 2012) and the Bank of England is tasked by HM Government to keep inflation at 2 per cent using various monetary tools (one of which is interest rates) – you can see why interest rate rises might be on the cards in the future as increasing interest rates tends to dampen inflation.

Now of course there is a certain amount of uncertainty with regard to Brexit and the negotiations thereof, but fundamentally the British economy is in decent shape. People will always need housing and as we aren’t building enough houses (as I have mentioned many times in the Locks Heath Property Blog), we might see a slight dip in prices in the short term, but in the medium to long term, the Locks Heath property market will always remain strong for both Locks Heath homeowners and Locks Heath Landlords alike.

As the winter months draw in and the temperature starts to drop, keeping one’s home warm is vital.  Yet, with the price of gas and electricity rising quicker than a Saturn V rocket and gas, oil and electricity taking on average 4.4% of a typical Brit’s pay packet (and for those Brit’s with the lowest 10% of incomes, that rockets to an eye watering 9.7%), whether you are a tenant or homeowner, keeping your energy costs as low as possible is vital for the household budget and the environment as a whole.

For the last 10 years, every private rental property must have an Energy-Performance-Certificate (EPC) rating.  The property is given an energy rating, very similar to those on washing machines and fridges with the rainbow coloured graph, of between A to G (A being the most efficient and G the worst).  New legislation comes in to force next spring (2018) for English and Welsh private landlords making it illegal to let a property that does not meet a certain energy rating.  After the 1^st of April next year, any new tenant moving into a private rented property or an existing tenant renewing their tenancy must have property with an energy performance rating of E or above on the property’s EPC and the new law will apply for all prevailing tenancies in the spring of 2020.  After April 2018, if a Landlord lets a property in the ‘F’ and ‘G’ ratings (i.e. those properties with the worst energy ratings) Trading Standards could fine the Landlord up to £4,000.

Personally, I have grave apprehensions that many Locks Heath Landlords may be totally unaware that their Locks Heath rental properties could fall below these new legal minimum requirements for energy efficiency benchmarks.  Whilst some households may require substantial works to get their Locks Heath property from an F/G rating to an E rating or above, my experience is most properties may only need some minor work to lift them from illegal to legal.  By planning and acting now, it will mitigate the need to find tradespeople in the spring when every other Locks Heath landlord will be panicking and paying top dollar for work to comply.

Whilst there is money and effort involved in upgrading the energy efficiency of rental property, a property that is energy efficient will have greater appeal to tenants and other buy-to-let landlords/investors and this will enable you to obtain higher rents and sale price (when you come to sell your investment).

So, how many properties are there in the area that are F and G rated?  Well quite a few in fact.  Looking at the whole of the Fareham Borough Council area, of the 4,645 privately rented properties, there are:

101 rental properties in the F banding

32 rental properties in the G banding

That means just under one in 35 rental properties in the Locks Heath and surrounding area has an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of F or G.  From April next year it will be illegal to rent out those homes rated F and G with a new tenancy.

Talking with the Energy Assessor that carries out our EPC’s, they tell me most of a building’s heat is lost through draughty windows/doors or poor insulation in the roof and walls.  So why not look at your EPC and see what the assessor suggested to improve the efficiency of your property?  I can find the EPC of every rental property in Locks Heath, so irrespective of whether you are a client of mine or not, don’t hesitate to contact me via email (or phone) if you need some guidance on finding out the EPC rating or need a trustworthy contractor that can help you out.

james.hill@brooklettings.co.uk

01489 570011

In the credit crunch of 2008/9 the rate of home moving plunged to its lowest level ever. In 2009 the rate at which a typical house would change hands slumped to only once every 23 years.  The biggest reason being that confidence was low and many homeowners didn’t want to sell their home as Locks Heath property prices plunged after the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.  However, since 2009, the rate of home moving has increased (see the table and graph below), meaning today:

The average period of time between home moves in Locks Heath is now 17.5 years.

This is an increase of 29.25 per cent between the credit crunch fallout year of 2009 and today, but still it is a 29.21 per cent drop in moves by homeowners, compared to 15 years ago (The Noughties).

So why aren’t Locks Heath homeowners moving as much as they did in the Noughties?

The causes of the current state of play are numerous.  In last weeks article I talked about how ‘real’ incomes and savings had been dropping.  Another issue is the long-term failure in the number of properties being built.

Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, as a country, we were building on average 300,000 and 350,000 households a year.  The Barker Review a few years ago said that for the UK to stand still and keep up with housing demand (through immigration, people living longer, a just under 50% increase in the number of households with a single person since the 1980’s and family makeup (i.e. divorce makes one household now two)) we needed to build 240,000 households a year.  Over the last few years, we have only been building between 135,000 and 150,000 households a year.

Finally, as the UK Population gets older, there is no getting away from the fact that a maturing population is a less mobile one.

So, what does this mean for Locks Heath homeowners and Landlords?

Well, if Locks Heath people are less inclined to move or find it hard to sell a property or acquire a new one, they are probably less likely to move to an improved job or a more prosperous part of the UK.

Many of the older generation in Locks Heath are stuck in property that is simply too big for their needs.  The fact is that, in Locks Heath and Fareham Borough, more than five out of every ten (or 51.9 per cent) owned houses has two or more spare bedrooms; or to be more exact …

19,575 of the 37,737 owned households in the Fareham Borough have two or more spare bedrooms.

So, as their children and grandchildren struggle to move up the housing ladder, with those young families bursting at the seams in homes too small for them i.e. overcrowding, we have a severe case of under-occupation with the older generation – grandparents staying put in their bigger homes, with a profusion of spare bedrooms.

Regrettably, I cannot see how the rate of properties being sold will rise any time soon. Many commentators have suggested the Government should give tax breaks to allow the older generation to downsize, yet in a recent White Paper on housing published just weeks before the General Election, there was no reference of any thoughtful and detailed policies to inspire or support them to do so.

This means that there could be an opportunity for Locks Heath buy to let Landlords to secure larger properties to rent out, as the demand for them will surely grow over the coming years.  As for homeowners; well those in the lower and middle Locks Heath market will find it a balanced sellers/buyers market, but will find it slightly more a buyers market in the upper price bands.

Interesting times ahead!

As I mentioned in a previous article, the average house price in Locks Heath is 9.28 times the average annual Locks Heath salary.  This is higher than the last peak of 2008, when the ratio was 8.48.  A number of City commentators anticipated that in the ambiguity that trailed the Brexit vote, UK (and hence Locks Heath) property prices might drop like a stone.  The point is – they haven’t.

Now it’s true the market for Locks Heath’s swankiest and poshest properties looks a little fragile (although they are selling if they are realistically priced) and overall, Locks Heath property price growth has slowed, but the lower to middle Locks Heath property market appears to be quite strong.

Scratch under the surface though, and a different long-term picture is emerging away from what is happening to property prices. Locks Heath people are moving home less often than they once did. Data from the Office of National Statistics shows that the number of properties sold in 2016 is again much lower than it was in the Noughties. My statistics show…

Even though we are not anywhere near the post credit crunch (2008 and 2009) low levels of property sales, the lethargy of the Locks Heath housing market following the 2016 Brexit vote has seen the number of property sales in Locks Heath and the surrounding local authority area level off to what appears to be the start of a new long term trend (compared the Noughties).

Interestingly, it was the 1980’s that saw the highest levels of people moving home.  Nationally, everyone was moving on average every decade.  Even though it was during the Labour administration of the late 1970’s where the right to buy one’s council house started, it was the Housing Act of 1980 that that really got council tenants moving. Thatcher’s Tory government financially encouraged council tenants to buy their council-rented homes – for which countless then sold them on for a profit and moved elsewhere.  The housing market was awash with money as banks were allowed to offer mortgages as well as the existing building societies, meaning it made it simpler for Brits to borrow even more money on mortgages and to climb up the housing ladder.

But coming back to today, looking at the property sales figures in the Locks Heath area since 2010/11, a new trend of number of property sales appears to have started.  Interestingly, this has been mirrored nationally.  The reasons behind this are complex, but a good place to start is the growth rate of real UK household disposable income, which has fallen from 5.01% a year in 2000 to 1.68% in 2016.  Also, things have deteriorated since the country voted to leave the EU as consumer price inflation has risen to 2.7% per annum, meaning inflation has eaten away at the real value of wages (as they have only grown by 1.1% in the same time frame).

With meagre real income growth, it has become more difficult for homeowners to accumulate the savings needed to climb up the housing ladder as the level of saving has also dropped from 4.26% of household income to -1.11% (i.e. people are eating into their savings).

Next week I will be discussing how these (and other issues) has meant the level of Locks Heath people moving home has slumped to once every 17.5 years.

I recently read a report by the Yorkshire Building Society that 54% of the country has seen wages (salaries) rise faster than property prices in the last 10 years.  The report said that in the Midlands and North salaries had outperformed property prices since 2007, whilst in other parts of the UK, especially in the South, the opposite has happened and property prices have outperformed salaries quite noticeably.

As regular readers of my blog know, I always like to find out what has actually happened locally in Locks Heath.  To talk of North and South is not specific enough for me. Therefore, to start, I looked at what has happened to salaries locally since 2007.  Looking at the Office of National Statistics (ONS) data for Fareham Borough Council, some interesting figures came out…

Salaries in Fareham have risen by 18.11% since 2007 (although it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster ride to get there!) – interesting when you compare that with what has happened to salaries regionally (an increase of 15.87%) and nationally, an increase of 17.61%.

Next, I needed to find what had happened to property prices locally over the same time frame of 2007 and today.  Net property values in Fareham are 33.32% higher than they were in late 2007 (not forgetting they did dip in 2008 and 2009). Therefore…

Property values in the Locks Heath area have increased at a higher rate than wages to the tune of 15.21%… meaning, Locks Heath is in line with the regional trend

All this is important as the relationship between salaries and property values is the basis on how affordable property is to first (and second, third etc.) time buyers.  It is also vitally relevant for Locks Heath Landlords as they need to be aware of this when making their buy-to-let plans for the future. If more Locks Heath people are buying, then demand for Locks Heath rental properties will drop (and vice versa).

As I have discussed in a few articles in my blog recently, this issue of ‘property-affordability’ is a great bellwether to the future direction of the Locks Heath property market.  Now of course, it isn’t as simple as comparing salaries and property prices, as that measurement disregards issues such as low mortgage rates and the diminishing proportion of disposable income that is spent on mortgage repayments.

On the face of it, the change between 2007 and 2017 in terms of the ‘property-affordability’ hasn’t been that great.  However, look back another 10 years to 1997, and that tells a completely different story.  Nationally, the affordability of property more than halved between 1997 and today.  In 1997, house prices were on average 3.5 times workers’ annual wages, whereas in 2016 workers could typically expect to spend around 7.7 times annual wages on purchasing a home.

The issue of a lack of homeownership has its roots in the 1980’s and 1990’s.  It’s quite hard as a tenant to pay your rent and save money for a deposit simultaneously, meaning for many Locks Heath people, home ownership isn’t a realistic goal.  Earlier in the year the Tories released proposals to combat the country’s ‘broken’ housing market, setting out plans to make renting more affordable, while increasing the security of rental deals and threatening to bring tougher legal action to cases involving bad Landlords.

This is all great news for Locks Heath Tenants and decent law-abiding Locks Heath Landlords (and indirectly owner occupier homeowners).  Whatever has happened to salaries or property prices in Locks Heath in the last 10 (or 20) years… the demand for decent high-quality rental property keeps growing.  If you want a chat about where the Locks Heath property market is going – please read my other blog posts on The Locks Heath Property Blog or drop me note via email, like many Locks Heath Landlords are doing.

Moving to a bigger home is something Locks Heath people with growing young families aspire to.  Many people in two bedroom homes move to a three bedroom home and some even make the jump to a four bed home.  Bigger homes, especially three bed Locks Heath homes are much in demand and it can be a costly move.

If you live in Locks Heath in a two-bedroom property and wish to move to a four bedroom house in Locks Heath, you would need to spend an additional £227,181 (or £897.37 pm in mortgage payments (based on the UK Bank average standard variable rate)).  However, going straight to a four bed from a two bed home is quite rare as most people jump from a two to three bedroom home, then later in life, from a three to four bedroom home.

So, after being asked my thoughts on moving home in Locks Heath by a friend recently, please find my analysis of the local property market and then some thoughts.  To start with, let us see what the average property price is for a Locks Heath property by the number of bedrooms it has.

I then decided to calculate what it would cost to make the jump upmarket from one bedroom to two bedrooms, two to three bedrooms etc, etc, both in actual money and in mortgage payments (using the current standard variable rate of UK Banks of 4.74% – so the mortgage cost could be higher or lower depending on the mortgage taken).

There are some interesting jumps in costs when moving upmarket as a Locks Heath buyer. The cost of moving from one to two beds, and two to three beds is relatively reasonable, whilst the jump from three to four beds in Locks Heath is quite high (and hence why some four bed properties are taking slightly longer to sell nowadays).  On an aside, a lesson here for all my Landlord property blog readers, you can quite clearly see why the larger 4 and 5 bed properties don’t offer the best returns for buy to let because the monthly finance costs and rents achieved don’t match up so well.

So, coming back and looking at the stock of properties in Locks Heath, this also makes interesting reading …

The most active purchasers are 20 something and 30 something home-owning parents with growing families.  Many look to more modern developments for the perfect balance of access to decent primary schools, commutability and lifestyle.  For landlords looking to buy within Locks Heath, they face stiff competition from these 20/30 something families, making the three bedroom Locks Heath home massively in demand, often attracting spirited offers and selling within weeks of listing.  This mix of homebuyers and Landlords is a pressure point in the Locks Heath property market.

Yet, the cost of an additional bedroom can be too much for some Locks Heath buyers.  It is quite challenging moving home the first time, but to then find you are priced out on the next move up the ladder can be quite disconcerting, with families often having to move to a different part of town to get the bigger home they need.

Nevertheless, that’s the place many homeowners find themselves in with the cost of the additional bedroom being too much to bear.  To those buying their home for the first time, all I suggest is they not only consider the mortgage payments and other costs of their first home, but also do their homework into their next rung up the Locks Heath property ladder.  Thinking about it now will keep you ahead of the game in the future; as your number of bedrooms, family property needs and lifestyle wants change.

… and Locks Heath Landlords – well these changes in the way people live also mean there are opportunities to be had in the Locks Heath rental market.  Many Locks Heath Landlords are starting to pick my brain on this, so if you don’t want to miss out – drop me a line.

The mind-set and tactics you employ to buy your first Locks Heath buy to let property needs to be different to the tactics and methodology of buying a home for yourself to live in.  The main difference is when purchasing your own property, you may well pay a little more to get the home you (and your family) want, and are less likely to compromise.  When buying for your own use, it is only human nature you will want the best, so that quite often it is at the top end of your budget.

Yet with a buy to let property, if your goal is a higher rental return – a higher price doesn’t always equate to higher monthly returns – in fact quite the opposite.  Inexpensive Locks Heath properties can bring in bigger monthly returns.  Most landlords use the phrase ‘yield’ instead of monthly return.  To calculate the yield on a buy to let property one basically takes the monthly rent, multiplies it by 12 to get the annual rent and then divides it by the value of the property.

This means, if one increases the value of the property using this calculation, the subsequent yield drops.  Or to put it another way, if a Locks Heath buy to let Landlord has the decision of two properties that create the same amount of monthly rent, the landlord can increase their rental yield by selecting the lower priced property.

To give you an idea of the sort of returns in Locks Heath…

Now of course these are averages and there will always be properties outside the lower and upper ranges in yields: they are a fair representation of the gross yields you can expect in the Locks Heath area.

As we move forward, with the total amount of buy to let mortgages amounting to £199,310,614,000 in the country, Landlords need to be aware of the investment performance of their property, especially in the era of tax increases and tax relief reductions.  Landlords are looking to maximise their yield – and are doing so by buying cheaper properties.

However, before everyone in Locks Heath starts selling their upmarket properties and buying cheap ones, yield isn’t the only factor when deciding on what Locks Heath buy to let property to buy.  Void periods (i.e. the time when there isn’t a Tenant in the property between tenancies) are an important factor and those properties at the cheaper end of the rental spectrum can suffer higher void periods too.  Apartments can also have service charges and ground rents that aren’t accounted for in these gross yields. Landlords can also make money if the value of the property goes up and for those Locks Heath Landlords who are looking for capital growth, an altered investment strategy may be required.

In Locks Heath, for example, over the last 20 years, this is how the average price paid for the four different types of Locks Heath property have changed:

• Locks Heath Detached Properties have increased in value by 240.6%
• Locks Heath Semi-Detached Properties have increased in value by 278.2%
• Locks Heath Terraced Properties have increased in value by 267.5%
• Locks Heath Apartments have increased in value by 240.1%

It is very much a balancing act of yield, capital growth and void periods when buying in Locks Heath.  Every Landlord’s investment strategy is unique to them.  If you would like a fresh pair of eyes to look at your portfolio, be you a private Landlord that doesn’t use a Letting Agent or a Landlord that uses one of my competitors – then feel free to drop in and let’s have a chat.  What have you got to lose? 30 minutes and my tea making skills are legendary!

My thoughts to the Landlords and homeowners of Locks Heath…

The tightrope of being a Locks Heath buy-to-let Landlord is a balancing act many do well at. Talking to several Locks Heath Landlords, they are very conscious of their Tenants’ capacity and ability to pay the rent and their own need to raise rents on their rental properties (as Government figure shows ‘real pay’ has dropped 1% in the last six months).  Evidence does suggest many Landlords feel more assured than they were in the spring about pursuing higher rents on their properties.

During the summer months, historic evidence suggests that the rents new Tenants have had to pay on move in have increased.  June/July/August is a time when renters like to move, demand surges and the normal supply and demand seesaw mean Tenants are normally prepared to pay more to secure the property they want to live in, in the place they want to be.  This is particularly good news for Locks Heath Landlords as average Locks Heath rents have been on a downward trend recently.  So look at the figures here…

Rents in Locks Heath on average for new tenants moving in have risen 0.9% for the month, taking overall annual Locks Heath rents 0.9% lower for the year

However, several Locks Heath Landlords have expressed their apprehensions about a slowing of the housing market in Locks Heath.  I think this negativity may be exaggerated.

Before we get the Champagne out, the other side of the coin to property investing is capital values (which will also be of interest to all the homeowners in Locks Heath as well as the Locks Heath buy-to-let Landlords).  I believe the Locks Heath property market has been trying to find some level of equilibrium since the New Year.  According to the Land Registry…

Property Values in Locks Heath are 6.25% higher than they were 12 months ago, rising by 0.01% last month

Yet, I would take those figures with a pinch of salt as they reflect the sales of Locks Heath properties that took place in early Spring 2017 and now are only exchanging and completing during the summer months.

The reality is the number of properties that are on the market in Locks Heath today has risen by 32.5% since the New Year and that will have a dampening effect on property values.  As Tenants have had less choice, buyers now have more choice… and that will temper Locks Heath property prices as we head towards 2018.

Be you a homeowner or Landlord, if you are planning to sell your Locks Heath property in the short term, it is crucial, especially with the rise in the number of properties on the market, that you realistically price your property when you bring it to the market… with the increase in choice of properties, the balance of power during negotiation generally sways towards the buyer.  Given that everyone now has access to property details, including historic stats for how much property have sold for, they will be more astute during the offer and negotiation stages of a purchase.

However, even with this uplift in the number of properties for sale in Locks Heath, property prices will remain stable and strong in the medium to long term.  This is because the number of properties on the market today is still way below the peak of summer of 2008, when there were 871 properties for sale compared to the current level of 411 (if you recall, prices dropped by nearly 20% in Credit Crunch years of ‘08 and ‘09).

Compared to 2008, today’s lower supply of Locks Heath properties for sale will keep prices relatively high… and they will continue to stay at these levels for the medium to long term.

Less people are moving than a few years ago, meaning less property is for sale.  Fewer properties for sale mean property prices remain relatively high and this is because of a number of underlying reasons.  Firstly, buy-to-let Landlords tend not sell their properties as often than owner-occupiers, consequently removing the property out of the housing market selling cycle.  Secondly, Stamp Duty is much higher compared to 10 years ago (meaning it costs more to move).  Next, there is a dearth of local authority rental housing so demand for private rented housing will remain high.  Then we have the UK’s maturing owner occupier population, meaning these older people are less likely to move (compared to when they were younger).  Another reason is the lack of new homes being built in the country (we need 240k houses a year to be built in the UK and we are currently only building 145k a year!) and finally, the new mortgage rules introduced in 2014 about how much a person can borrow on a mortgage has curtailed demand.

Some final thought’s before I go – to all the Locks Heath homeowners that aren’t planning to sell – this talk of price changes is only on paper profit or loss.  To those that are moving… most people that sell, are buyers as well, so as you might not get as much for yours, the one you will want to buy won’t be as much, (swings and roundabouts as Mum used to say!).

To all the Locks Heath Landlords – keep your eyes peeled – I have a feeling there may be some decent buy-to-let deals to be had in the coming months.  One place for such deals, irrespective of which agent is selling it, is my Locks Heath Property Blog.

“What’s happening to the Locks Heath Property Market?” is a question I am asked repeatedly.  Well, would it be a surprise to hear that my own research suggests that there isn’t just one big Locks Heath property market – but many small micro-property markets?

According to recent data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), I have discovered that at least three of these micro-property markets have emerged over the last 20+ years in the suburb.

For ease, I have named them the …

1. ‘lower’ Locks Heath Property Market.
2. ‘lower to middle’ Locks Heath Property Market.
3. ‘middle’ Locks Heath Property Market.

The ‘lower’ and ‘lower to middle’ sectors of the Locks Heath property market have been fuelled over the last few years by two sets of buyers.  The first set, making up the clear majority of those buyers, are cash rich landlord investors who are throwing themselves into the Locks Heath property market to take advantage of alluringly low prices and even lower interest rates.  The other set of buyers in the ‘lower’ and ‘lower to middle’ Locks Heath property market are the first-time buyers (FTB), although the FTB market is in a state of unparalleled deadlock as it’s been trampled into near-immobility and incapacity by the new 2014 stricter mortgage affordability regulations and also fewer mortgages with low deposits.

Some of you may be interested to know how I have classified the three sectors ..

1. ‘lower’ Locks Heath housing market – the bottom 10% (in terms of value) of properties sold
2. ‘lower to middle’ Locks Heath housing market – lower Quartile (or lowest 25% in terms of value) of properties sold
3. ‘middle’ Locks Heath housing market – which is the median in terms of value

…. and if one looks at the figures for Fareham Borough Council area you can see the three different sectors (lower, lower/middle and middle) have performed quite differently.

You can quite clearly see that it is the ‘middle’ market that has performed the best.

You might ask, what do all these different figures mean to homeowners and landlords alike?  Quite a lot – so let me explain.  The worst performing sector (with the lowest Percentage uplift) was the ‘lower’ housing market.  Therefore, interestingly, if we applied the best percentage uplift figure (i.e. from the ‘middle’ market percentage uplift), to the ‘lower’ 1995 housing market figure, the 2017 figure of £157,500, would have been £178,292 instead – quite a difference you must agree?

Now, I have specifically not mentioned the upper reaches of the Locks Heath housing market for several reasons.  Firstly, the lower or middle market is where most of the buy to let investment landlords buy their property and where the majority of property transactions take place.  Secondly, due to the unique and distinctive nature of Locks Heath’s up-market property scene (because every property is different and they don’t tend to sell as often as the lower to middle market), it is much more difficult to calculate what changes have occurred to property prices in that part of the Locks Heath property market – looking at the stats for the up-market Locks Heath property market from Land Registry, only 17 properties in Locks Heath (and a 5 mile radius around it) have sold for £2,000,000 or more since 1997.

So, what should every homeowner and buy to let landlord take from the information that there are many micro-property markets?  Well, when you realise there isn’t just one Locks Heath Property Market, but many Locks Heath “micro-property markets”, you can spot trends and bag yourself some potential bargains.  Even in this market, I have spotted a number of bargains over the last few months that I have shared in my Property Blog and to my landlord database, especially in the ‘lower’ and ‘lower/middle’ market.  If you want to be kept informed of those buy to let bargains, have a look at my blog www.thelocksheathpropertyblog.co.uk.  It is free to do so and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss out – would you?

I would love to know if you have spotted any micro-property markets in Locks Heath.