Now the dust has
settled and the General Election seems a distant memory, we can get back to a
more normal property market, or that is what the London based ‘Fleet Street’
journalists would lead you to believe. You see, I have been talking to many
fellow property professionals in Hampstead (solicitors, conveyancers and one
the best sources of info – the chap who puts all the estate agent and letting
boards up in Hampstead, and all of them, every last one of them, told me they
didn’t see any change over April in business, compared to any other month on
the lead up to the Election itself.
In a nutshell, the General Election in Hampstead didn’t
really have any impact on people’s confidence to buy property. As I write this article, of 379 properties
that have come on to the market in Hampstead
since the 2nd of April,
69 of them have a buyer and are sold subject to contract, that’s nearly
one in five (18.21% to be precise).
I think that things are starting to change in the way people
in Hampstead (in fact the whole of the country as I talk to other agents around
the UK )
buy and sell property. Back in the
1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, the norm was to buy a terraced house as soon as you left
home and do it up. Meanwhile, property
prices had gone up, so you traded up to a 2 bed apartment, then a 3 bed
apartment and repeated the process, until you found yourself in large 4 bed house with a large mortgage.
Looking into this a little deeper like I have said in
previous articles Hampstead people’s attitude to homeownership itself has changed
over the last ten years. The pressure
for youngsters to buy when young has gone as renting, not buying, is considered
the norm for 20 something’s. This isn’t just a Hampstead thing, but, a national
thing, as I have noticed that people buy property by trading up (or down)
because they need to, not because ‘it’s what people do’. This does means there are a lot less
properties on the market compared to the last decade.
A by-product of less people moving is less people selling
their property. My research shows there are a lot fewer properties each month
selling in Hampstead compared to the last decade. For example, in February 2015, only 54
properties were sold in Hampstead. Compare this to February 2002, and 86
properties sold and the same month in 2003, 81 properties. I repeated the exercise on different sets of
years, (comparing the same month to allow for seasonal variations) and the
results were identical if not greater.
So what does this all mean?
Demand for Hampstead property isn’t flying away, but with fewer
properties for sale, it means property prices are proving reasonably stable
too. Stable, consistent and steady growth of property values in Hampstead, year
on year, without the massive peaks and troughs we saw in the late 1980’s and
mid/late2000’s might just be the thing that the Hampstead property market needs
in the long term.
If you are looking for an agent with experience that can help you find the right tenant for your property, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of your investment property. Email me on chris@ashmoreresidential.com or give me a call on 020 7435 0420. Pop in for a chat – we are based on Ashmore Residential, Suite 7, 25-27 Heath Street, London, NW3 6TR. The kettle is always on.
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