According to the Land Registry's latest House
Price Index for Grantham and the surrounding locality, the value of apartments/flats
are rising at a faster rate than terraced/town houses, semi-detached properties
and even detached property.
Values of apartments in Grantham have increased
by 4.8% over the past year, which is proportionally 78% more than the Grantham
average rise of 2.69%. The last time flats/apartments in Grantham out performed
all the other types of property by such a gulf was back in the Spring of 2003.
For comparison, the other property types performed as follows ..
·
Detached homes rose by 2.6%
·
Semi-detached homes rose by
2.57%
·
Terraced/Town-House rose by
2.39%
This moderately increasing rate of property
value growth is opportune – but no one should confuse it with a strong and
vigorous healthy Grantham property market. Instead, it is somewhat an indicator
of the long-lasting lack of property on the market. In fact, I have spoken
about the lack homes for sale in Grantham on a number of occasions in my
Grantham Property Blog and whilst it isn’t as bad as it was 12 months ago –
choice is quite limited for buyers.
The average property value in Grantham
now stands at £201,600.
When split down into property types ..
·
Grantham Apartments
at £101,000
·
Grantham Detached £288,100
·
Grantham Semi-Detached £155,200
·
Grantham
Terraced/Town-House £123,400
So why have Grantham apartments performed so
well, and is it just a Grantham thing? When I scrutinised the figures for the
rest of the UK, it appears that apartments are pacemakers in the clear majority
of the country. Of the 379 local authority areas in UK, the value of apartments
is rising faster than detached, semi-detached and terraced houses in 320
of them.
So, should Grantham apartment owners be getting
out the Champagne? Well, I would keep it on ice as the Land Registry figures
are notorious for short term fluctuations. It’s hard to have faith in that Grantham
house values rose rapidly last month, given in the last six months, the Land
Registry has frequently performed downward revisions to the first published
House Price Index figures in previous months.
Thankfully, a big picture view from the Council
of Mortgage Lenders (CML) stated that home buying activity last month was 2% up
over same month in 2016 – not bad as we have had the Autumn, Winter and now
Spring since Brexit. The CML stated first time buyer’s levels of affordability was
being squeezed and that the average amount borrowed by those first-time buyers
dropped slightly last month, but the overall amount borrowed (by all buyers)
was an impressive 12% higher than the same month in 2016.
So, what next for the Grantham Property market?
I believe the uplift in the values of apartments is a short-term blip. The real
issue is with the way wage growth might not keep up with inflation as the
effects of 2016 exchange rate sucks in inflation (meaning real wage growth
stagnates). This will mean buyer demand growth will be curtailed and with
property values already so full, I believe a renewed hastening in house price
growth is unlikely.
I believe we are starting to return to housing
market we saw in the mid 1990’s, Steady demand, steady supply – nothing silly
when it come house price growth. I therefore
believe with what is happening around us – that isn’t a bad thing at all. HMS
Grantham Property Market…. “Nice and steady as she goes”, says the Captain
