Quick snap shot:
The market is currently showing signs of slowing with buyers starting to fall and sellers just staying at home. In some areas this is causing prices to show a rise, and certainly for those who are left buying and selling, demand and supply seems to be matching in many areas. However, there rumours now suggest that people believe owning a home isn't worthwhile, or is out of their reach!  

Need an independent valuation of your home? or one you want to buy? Then contact us on 0845 838 1763 or email enquiries@designsonproperty.co.uk to find out how we value properties.

Owning a Home is not all it's cracked up to be!
With property prices rising out of many people's reach up until 2007, followed by a rapid crash and problems securing mortgages, according to the NAEA, people are starting to think it's not worth buying a home at all.

According to NAEA, "nationally, 16 per cent of adults say that they have no desire to own a property." “These figures show the danger of that sort of approach – as many people in British cities are simply giving up. However as always with property, people feel very different regionally:-

The NAEA survey suggests "in Cardiff, 30 per cent of adults no longer wish to own property, compared to 27.7 per cent in Manchester and 25 per cent in both Brighton and Belfast."

However, in Southampton, only 10.3 per cent of adults in Southampton said that they did not want to own property, while even in expensive London, only 11.1 per cent of people decided they didn't want to buy a home".

So have we fallen out of love with Property?
It's unlikely that long term the UK population has fallen out of love with owning a home, but as our population's expectations change, younger people tend to want to 'live for today' and do so by:-

1. Renting what they want where they want (when not being able to buy what they want, where they want)
2. Spending money on meals out, trips abroad and computer/IPOD accessories.
3. Wanting to buy a smaller version of what their parent's own in the same area, but can't afford it.

Also the pressure to 'buy a home' is reducing with an increasing acceptablitily that renting is OK. And with a 'job for life' pretty much disappearing, it can be quite sensible to rent until you put your roots down, have a stable job/career and a family with kids at school.

However, despite the current fall in property sales and people not appearing to want to buy a home, this is unlikely to last long. Once the market picks up again, buyers and sellers will come back into the market, even if at a slightly lower level than pre 2007.   

What's Happening in my Area? 
"Property markets" really operate within a three mile radius as 80% of people buy property locally (in most areas) so national stats don't really help us understand what's happening in our own area.

In fact what we are seeing is probably the biggest difference regionally than we've ever seen. This is shown by For Sale Sign Analysis's data which tracks the number of properties sold versus for sale.

Click here for Best Performing Areas
Including: Edmonton, Kingswood and Bury St. Edmunds

Click here for Average Performing Areas
Including: York, Andover and Bow

Click here for Worst Performing Areas
Including: Hartlepool, Hull and East Dereham

Want FSSA data for your particular area? Then call 0845 308 2004 or email enquiries@designsonproperty.co.uk

The Independent also published a great article by Rob Griffin on which areas are likely to recover! You can compare this to Savills in depth Residential Focus Report which also predicts areas that will recover first and what regional growth can be expected over the next ten years.

Best Performing Areas

Average Performing Areas

Worst Performing Areas