What is really happening in the Canterbury Property Market?

Well its been a few months since Brexit and as we settle into the Autumn with Great British Bake Off, Strictly and the Football season ... the newspapers are returning to their mixed messages of good news, bad news and indifferent news about the Brit’s favourite subject after the weather ... the property market.

The thing is the UK does not have one housing market. Instead, it is a patchwork of mini property markets all performing in a different way. At one end of scale is Kensington and Chelsea, which has seen average prices drop in the last twelve months by 6.2% whilst in our South-East region, house prices are 12.3% higher. But what about Canterbury?

Property prices in Canterbury are 7.8% higher than a year ago

and 0.6% lower than last month.

So what does this mean for Canterbury landlords and homeowners? Not that much unless you are buying or selling in reality. Most sellers are buyers anyway, so if the one you are buying has gone down, yours has gone down.  Everything is relative and what I would say is, if you look hard enough, there are even in this market, there are still some bargains to be had in Canterbury.

However, the most important question you should be asking though is not only is what happening to property prices, but exactly which price band is selling? I like to keep an eye on the property market in Canterbury on a daily basis because it enables me to give the best advice and opinion on what (or not) to buy in Canterbury.

If you look at Canterbury and split the property market into four equalled sized price bands. Each price band would have around 25% of the property in Canterbury, from the lowest in value band (the bottom 25%) all the way through to the highest 25% band (in terms of value).

• Nil to £220k             90 properties for sale and 65 sold (stc) i.e. 41% sold
• £220k to £260k         79 properties for sale and 54 sold (stc) i.e. 40% sold
  
• £260k to £350k       103 properties for sale and 70 sold (stc) i.e. 40% sold
  
• £350k +                    77 properties for sale and 58 sold (stc) i.e. 42% sold

Fascinating don’t you think that it is the whole Canterbury market that is doing well?
The next nine months’ activity will be crucial in understanding which way the market will go this year after Brexit ... but, Brexit or no Brexit, people will always need a roof over their head and that is why the property market has ridden the storms of oil crisis’ in the 1970’s, the 1980’s depression, Black Monday in the 1990’s, and latterly the credit crunch together with the various house price crashes of 1973, 1987 and 2008.

And why? Because of Britain’s chronic lack of housing will prop up house prices and prevent a post spike crash. ... there is always a silver lining when it comes to the property market!