How EU Migration has changed the Warrington Property Market

The argument of migration and what it does and doesn’t do for the Countries economic well being is something that had been hotly contested over the last few years. More so as the EU referendum closes in on us. In my article today, I want to talk about what it has done for the Warrington Property market.

Before we look at Warrington though, let us look at the some interesting figures for the country as a whole. Between 2001 and 2011, 971,144 EU citizens came to the UK to live, and of those, 171,164 of them (17.68%) have bought their own home. It might surprise people that only 5.07% of EU migrants managed to secure a council house. However, 676,091 (69.62%) of them went into the private rental sector. This increase in population growth in the country has from the EU, no doubt, has added fuel to the UK housing market.

Looking at the figures, the housing market which undoubtedly is the strongest effected by migration has been the private rented housing sector, especially in those areas where migrants come together and indeed, I have seen that many EU migrants often compete for such housing not with UK tenants, but with other EU migrants. In 2001, 3.68 million rented a property from a landlord in the UK. Ten years later and by 2011, whilst EU migration added those additional 676,091 people who rented a property from a landlord, an additional 4.14 million people who become tenants were not EU migrants, but predominately British!

As a landlord, it is really important to gauge the potential demand for your rental property, especially if you are a landlord who buys property in areas popular with the Eastern European EU migrants. To gauge the level of EU migration (and thus demand), one of the best ways to calculate the growth of migrants is to calculate the number of people who ask for a National Insurance number (which EU members are able to obtain).

Interestingly, in Warrington, migration has been steady over the last few years. For example, in 2007 there were 1,502 migrant national Insurance cards (NIC) issued and the year after in 2008, 938 NIC cards were issued. However, in 2014, this had risen to 1,425 NIC’s. However, if the pattern of other migrations since WW2, over time there will be increasing demand for owner occupied property, which may affect the market in certain areas of high migrant concentration. On the other hand, over time some households move into the larger housing market, reducing concentrations and pressures.

In essence, migration has affected the Warrington property market, it couldn’t fail to because of the additional 12,584 working age migrants that have moved into Warrington area since 2005. However, it has not been the main influence on the market. Property values in Warrington today are in fact 1.3% lower than they were in 2005. According to the Office of National Statistics, rents by tenants in the Warrington area have only grown on average by 0.69% a year since 2005 .... I would say if it wasn’t for the migrants, we would be a fair worse position when it came to the Warrington property market. This is backed up by the then Home Secretary Theresa May back in 2012, that more than a third of all new housing demand in Britain is caused by inward migration and that there is evidence that without the demand caused by such immigration, house prices would be 10% lower over a 20 year period.

If you would like to know more about the Warrington Property Market, then for more articles like this, please keep visiting my Blog weekly - if you would like to join my monthly maillist email me on manoj@hamletwarrington.co.uk and I will send you a pdf newsletter once a month with research I have wrote regarding the Warrington property market, if you are in the area feel free to pop into the office we are based on 6 Bankside, Crosfield St, WA1 1UP plenty of free parking and the kettle is always on.

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