Warrington Property Blog: 2019

Wednesday, 4 December 2019

Are the Tory’s Selling Off the Final Part of the Family Silver? 6,729 Warrington Housing Association Households & the Right to Buy Their Homes

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In 1979, Margaret Thatcher was voted in on a Tory landslide with the ‘right to buy your own council house’ being a mainstay of Conservative policy. She encouraged people to buy their own their own council flats and houses, although it might interest you to know, that the council tenant right to buy idea was first proposed in the late 1950s and formed part of the manifesto of the Labour party. Yet Maggie’s version was based on massive discounts for tenants and 100% mortgages (i.e. no deposit). However, the real bugbear was that half the monies raised form the house sales went to central Government and the other half to the local authorities … but that money had to be used to reduce the local authorities debt rather than building new houses - so houses were being sold and not replaced.

2,466 council homes in the Warrington area have been

bought in the last 40 years (an average 62 per year)

Interestingly, the Tories relaxed the rules in 2012 for right to buy and raised the highest discount on a property to £75,000 (it has subsequently increased further, to £100,000, in some parts of the UK) meaning 62,114 council houses have been sold nationally since the rule change, raising £6.228bn since 2012 alone.

The issue, stated by many existing council house tenants, is that those tenants turned homeowners subsequently sell on their ex-council homes at a huge a huge profit, meaning the demographics of those areas has become ever more transient, more specifically, properties that were once council homes are now owned by buy-to-let landlords who rent them out on a short-term basis.

Yet up to this point in time, nothing has been said about ‘other’ type of social housing - housing association properties. Whilst council houses are properties owned by the local authority providing low cost social housing, housing associations also provide lower-cost social housing for people in need of a home, yet they are private, non-profit making organisations.

The Tory’s state one of the biggest divides in our British society is between those who can and cannot afford their own home, so plan to establish a new national model for shared ownership which allows people in new housing association properties to buy a proportion of their home while paying a lower/subsidised rent on the remain part - helping thousands of lower income earners get a step onto the housing ladder.

So, what for the tenants of the existing 6,729 housing association households in Warrington? The Conservatives have said they will work with housing associations on a voluntary basis to determine what right to buy offer could be made to those Warrington tenants, although there are already existing rules which give most housing association tenants the right to buy their home, yet with only modest discounts of £9,000 to £16,000 depending on where you live. So, what does all this mean for the current homeowners and landlords of Warrington properties?

The Tory’s sold off 328 council houses in Warrington whilst in power between 1979 and 1997

The sales really created waves in the housing market in the 1980’s and was a contributary factor to the housing crash of 1987 when Dual-MIRAS tax relief was removed by Nigel Lawson. By the selling off of council housing in those years they were accused of selling off the family silver cheaply, thus created the foundation of the buy-to-let boom of the early to mid 2000’s, because of major shortage of affordable housing being sold in the previous two decades.

Yet this time round, note the Tory’s state it is just for new housing association properties, not existing. Also, that tenants will have the right to go into shared ownership - NOT OUTRIGHT OWNERSHIP. This means this policy will have hardly any effect … unlike the Thatcher policies of 1979.

If you missed my breakdown on Labour’s Party policy and what difference that will make to our Warrington Property Market then you can see that by clicking the link below

https://warringtonproperty.blogspot.com/2019/11/labour-partys-u-turn-on-363665300-grab.html

If you are looking for an agent that is well established, professional and communicative, whether you’re buying, selling or looking for an investment opportunity, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of the Warrington property market.

Email me on manoj@hamletwarrington.co.uk or call on 01925 235 338 – we are based on the Warrington Business Park, Long Lane, WA2 8TX. There is plenty of free parking and the kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Warrington Property News.

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Tuesday, 26 November 2019

Labour Party’s U-turn on the £363,665,300 grab on Warrington landlord’s wallets

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Well, with the General Election just over the horizon and having been asked by a number of Warrington homeowners and Warrington buy to let landlords what the different main parties would do to the local property market, in this week’s article we focus on Labour’s contentious Right to Buy proposal for private tenants. Launched in September, the plan was designed to force landlords to sell their buy to let investments to their tenants who wished to buy them…. at a substantial discount.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell told the FT in September that, under a new Labour government, tenants would be given the Right to Buy their tenanted home with a hefty discount - just like the Tory Right to Buy policy for Council house renters that came into force after the 1979 General Election.

Yet it was not certain who would have been expected to pay for discounts on buy to let homes sold to tenants. Four years ago, Jeremy Corbyn advocated using the £14bn of tax allowances that UK landlords had at the time to pay for these discounts, allowing tenants to buy their tenanted home at the same discount as they would a local authority home without leaving the landlord out of pocket.

However, these tax allowances have been substantially reduced with the changes in the way mortgage interest relief on landlords’ mortgages is calculated, meaning that this method of funding would no longer be feasible. In fact, bankrolling a project at a modest 20% discount for the whole of the UK would cost £177.84bn; a lot more than the £14billion quoted by Mr Corbyn. So, what would that policy cost Warrington landlords?

Labours policy of 20% Right to Buy discount could

cost Warrington landlords £363,665,300

… and if Warrington tenants got the maximum discount of 35% that Council tenants have with the Right to Buy scheme that would cost Warrington landlords £636,414,280.

However, it appears Mr McDonnell has re-considered the original suggestion and done a (slight) U-turn, stating it should apply only to the richest landlords and not those who only own a couple of rental properties. He was quoted in The Times as saying, “There’s a large number of individuals or families who have bought another property as an asset for the future and we wouldn’t want to endanger that”.

Yet, even this somewhat watered-down account still creates threats to the private rental sector and Warrington’s overall stock of private rented homes. John McDonnell seems to have altered his initial thought to permit all private tenants the right to buy from their landlords to apply only to those with more than a couple of buy to let properties. The shift appears to be aimed at pacifying middle England small time landlords who are probably swing voters with smaller property investments and instead, Labour’s focus is on the larger scale buy to let investors. Looking at the stats, and being generous that we are only looking at landlords with 6 or more (not the couple that Mr McConnell suggested) ……

Of the 8,189 rental properties in Warrington, 2,236 are owned by Warrington landlords with 6 or more properties in their portfolio

To target these larger scale landlords, who would unquestionably leave the property market in their hordes if their buy to let investments could be so easily destabilised. There would be mass sell offs before the legislation became law, thus making the tenants homeless (and who would house them??) ..and even if that didn’t happen, it would be very damaging and someone (probably landlords) would have to stump up the £48.54bn national bill (£99,298,520 in Warrington alone).

If Labour want to fix the property market, it needs long term certainty and confidence, yet even these revised policies would instantly challenge this

And don’t think I am just Labour bashing here as the Tory 2014 Help to Buy scheme hasn’t really helped either as their scheme which gave first time buyers (FTB) a 20% interest free loan, if they put down a 5% deposit, has been a boon for new home builders.

The Tory’s announced recently another £10bn of taxpayer’s money will be pumped into a scheme which, quite frankly, wasn’t needed to boost an already decent property market. The banks were already giving 95% first time buyer (FTB) mortgages from 2010 and the Help to Buy scheme was only allowed on new homes purchases, meaning it didn’t help the larger second-hand market. That £10bn could have been better spent building Council houses, not helping the large plc builders line their pockets with Government cash.

Next week I will be focusing on the Conservative Party Policy and what difference that will make to our Warrington Property Market.

Friday, 22 November 2019

Warrington Buy to Let – Past, Present and Future

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Investing in a Warrington buy to let property has become a very different sport over the last few years.

In the glory days of the five years after the turn of the Millennium, where we had double-digit house price growth, mortgage companies (notably Northern Rock, HBOS and their ilk) desperate to get on the buy to let mortgage bandwagon with rates so low it would make the belly of a snake seem high and an open mildness to give loans away with not so much more than a note from your Mum and with hardly any regulatory intervention… anyone could make money from investing in property – in fact it was easier to make money than fall off a log! Then we had the unexpected flourish of the property market, with the post credit crunch jump in the property market after 2010, when everything seemed rosy in the garden.

Yet, over the past five years, the thumbscrews on the buy to let market for British (and de facto) Warrington investors have slowly turned with new barriers and challenges for buy to let investors. With the change in taxation rules on mortgage relief starting to bite plus a swathe of new rules and regulations for landlords and mortgage companies, it cannot be denied some Warrington landlords are leaving the buy to let sector, whilst others are putting a pause on their portfolio expansion.

With the London centric newspapers talking about a massive reduction in house prices (mainly in Mayfair and Prime London – not little old Warrington) together with the red-tape that Westminster just keeps adding to the burden of landlords’ profit, it’s no wonder it appears to be dome and gloom for Warrington landlords … or is it?

One shouldn’t always believe what one reads in the newspaper. It’s true, investing in the Warrington buy to let property market has become a very different ballgame in the last five years thanks to all the changes and a few are panicking and selling up.

Warrington landlords can no longer presume to buy a property, sit on it and automatically make a profit

Warrington landlords need to see their buy to let investments in these tremulous times in a different light. Before landlords kill their fatted calves (i.e. sell up) because values are, and pardon the metaphor, not growing beyond expectation (i.e. fattening up), let’s not forget that properties produce income in the form of rent and yield. The focus on Warrington buy to let property in these times should be on maximising your rents and not being preoccupied with just house price growth.

Rents in Warrington’s private rental sector increased

by 4.38% in the past 12 months

Rents in Warrington since 2008 have not kept up with inflation, it is cheaper today in REAL TERMS than it was 11 years ago and some landlords are beginning to realise that fact with our help.

Looking at the last few years, it can be seen that there is still a modest margin to increase rents to maximise your investment (and it can be seen some Warrington landlords have already caught on), yet still protect your tenants by keeping the rents below those ‘real spending power terms’ of the 2008 levels.

Buy to let must be seen as a medium and long-term investment ….

Rents in Warrington are 8.2% higher than they were 3 years ago and property values are 16.22% higher than Jan 2016

…and for the long term, even with the barriers and challenges that the Government is putting in your way – the future couldn’t be brighter if you know what you are doing.

Investment is the key word here… In the old days, anything with a front door and roof made money – yet now it doesn’t. Tenants will pay top dollar for the right property but in the right condition. Do you know where the hot spots are in Warrington, whether demand is greater for 2 beds in Warrington or 3 beds? Whether town centre terraced houses offer better ROI than suburban semis? With all the regulations many Warrington landlords are employing us to guide them by not only managing their properties, taking on the worries of property maintenance, the care of property and their tenants’ behaviour but also advising them on the future of their portfolio. We can give you specialist support (with ourselves or people we trust) on the future direction of the portfolio to meet your investment needs (by judging your circumstances and need between capital growth and yields), specialist finance and even put your property empire into a limited company.

If you are reading this and you know someone who is a Warrington buy to let landlord, do them a favour and share this article with them – it could save them a lot of worry, heartache, money and time.

Thursday, 31 October 2019

The money to buy a new iPhone11 represents just over a fifth of a Warrington first-time buyers mortgage deposit

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Many mature readers of this Warrington property market blog will remember buying their first home as 20 or 30 somethings, probably in Warrington many years ago, yet read the newspapers now and feel it is all doom and gloom for todays’ first-time buyers.

So, I wanted to look at the facts, instead of newspaper headlines.

Back in 1995, the average Warrington first time buyers house cost £30,920, whilst official figures state today it is £98,600

So, looking at today’s property prices, it could be perceived that owning a home is beyond the reach of most Warrington first time buyers and that renting is the only way for younger members of Warrington society to have a roof over their head .. or is it?

100% mortgages (so no deposit needed to be saved) were rife in the 2000’s and Northern Rock were famous for their 125% mortgages (i.e. you borrowed 25% more than what you were paying for the house, again with no deposit). Yet when the credit crunch hit in 2008 such mortgages disappeared overnight – ending the dream of homeownership for many. Yet would it surprise you to hear that 95% mortgages (i.e. the first-time buyer would need to save a 5% deposit) have been available since late 2009 and 100% mortgages (i.e. no deposit) were made available in 2016.

It is £91 per month cheaper to buy a typical Warrington first-time buyer home than to rent the equivalent property.

Prospective Warrington first-time buyers could make a saving of £1,093 per year on average if they moved from renting to owning. My calculations assume that first-time buyers raise a deposit of just 5 per cent and make mortgage payments over 35 years with the Barclays 95% mortgage with a fixed interest rate of 2.48 per cent interest. At this level…

Today, the average deposit needed by a

Warrington first-time buyer is £4,930

Those able to raise that deposit, would pay £348 pm on average in mortgage payments, while the average rent for the same property would be £439 pm and the household income to support such a mortgage would only need to be from £20,816 pa.

Of course, buying your first home is a massive financial commitment and investment with up-front costs to ponder on, yet long-term the financial benefits can be substantial. With annual savings of £1,093 a year, this can really mount up over time and, of course, once the mortgage is paid off, one will have a valuable asset.

Yet, the elephant in the room is the raising of the 5% deposit

Well most first time buyers, even most of you who are now in your 50’s and 60’s may have used the Bank of Mum and Dad to help with the deposit, yet it’s only fair that most parents still expect their offspring to contribute to the deposit and this is where it comes down to choice. I have spoken to many of my friends and family to reconfirm my initial thoughts that it comes down to priorities and choices in life. To save the deposit mentioned above, sacrifices are required to save that amount of money.

According to a survey in 2018, the average millennial goes out two nights a week and spends on average £63.36 per night out, that’s nearly £6,600 per year - a very expensive hobby. Nearly a third of millennials surveyed had smashed their mobile phone in the last 12 months. Then there is the obsession of having the latest tech, with the need to constantly be upgrading one’s mobile phone. In fact, the cost of the brand new iphone11, recently released, is just shy of £900. Even those on contracts can expect to pay upwards of £80 per month for the newest phone upgrade, yet if they kept their old phone after two years, a sim only deal with the same minutes and data would set them back no more than £25 per month … it comes down to choices. Save for a deposit and reduce your expenditure on socialising and mobiles etc and have a valuable asset at the end of your mortgage or continue as you are.

I am not here to make a judgement – everyone is free to make their own choices in life – all I am doing is highlighting the real situation - so you are aware of the full story.

Friday, 18 October 2019

Mending the Broken Warrington Property Market

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The long-lasting issue of the Warrington property market are laid bare as the final 2018 property transaction figures have just been published and they continue the post credit crunch trend of less people moving.

30.9% less of Warrington people are selling their homes annually since the credit crunch, when compared to the post Millennium years of 2000 to 2005

This is not just an issue of the Warrington housing market slowing down since the credit crunch - the challenge is to split out shorter-term factors such as Brexit and the elections from longer-term structural issues of the UK society, because when these most recent property transaction figures are seen against longer-term trends for Warrington, they suggest more significant issues in the Warrington housing market.

In the late 1990’s, 3,646 properties were sold annually in the Warrington area, then in the same area, the Millennium boom saw transactions rise to 4,406 per annum. Property sales then almost halved to 2,207 per annum in the challenge of the global financial crash and subsequent retrenchment of the mortgage market. Post credit crunch (2012 and beyond) locally, on average, 3,042 properties have sold annually.

So, whilst there was a recovery from 2013 onwards, it was rather uninspiring when compared to the pre-credit crunch years, with a lacklustre performance in property transactions since mid 2010’s.

You might ask why we should be concerned about the number of property transactions and not the change in property values?

The number of transaction numbers are a far more exact bellwether for the health and potency of the local housing market.

As less people have been selling their homes locally, this is not only bad for the Warrington housing market but for the economy locally, especially when you consider how many allied businesses (builders, decorators, solicitors, removal vans, estate agents, mortgage arrangers and other people) lose out as a result.

Some say the deficiency of supply of property, mainly affordable first-time buyer property, is the chief reason why transaction figures remain stubbornly low. Others suggest the absence of suitable housing stock up the property ladder (particularly bungalows for the older generation), combined with rising demand, is causing a bottleneck in our local housing market.

I know there has been much talk from Westminster about grand home-building programmes, yet we now require them to deliver on these undertakings and even then, it will be a few decades before we see a seismic change in the Warrington property market.

In the short-term, a quicker improvement may come from modifications to stamp duty. First time buyers don’t need to pay Stamp Duty up to a certain level, yet those Stamp Duty concessions could be extended to those mature homeowners looking to downsize. This could liberate a meaningful number of mature family homes occupied principally by these mature generation and the tax lost through Stamp Duty could be replenished by a revaluation of the Council Tax bands?

Council Tax bandings were set in 1991 and the seven bands, the highest band starts at £320,000 (based on 1991 values). It seems irrational to us that upper value band, set in the 1991 revaluations, has not been increased, particularly as house prices in London have risen by over 400 per cent during in the last 25 years.

That would mean higher tax for those who don’t move yet less tax for those that do move – because we believe it would boost a far more liquid Warrington property market.

Just a thought of mending the local property market – what are your thoughts?

If you are looking for an agent that is well established, professional and communicative, whether you’re buying, selling or looking for an investment opportunity, then contact us to find out how we can get the best out of the Warrington property market.

Email me on manoj@hamletwarrington.co.uk or call on 01925 235 338 – we are based on the Warrington Business Park, Long Lane, WA2 8TX. There is plenty of free parking and the kettle is always on.

Don't forget to visit the links below to view back dated deals and Warrington Property News.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW MUCH YOUR WARRINGTON HOME IS WORTH FOR FREE
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Thursday, 3 October 2019

76.9% of Warrington OAP’s own their own home … and they are worth £2,774.9m

Yes, that number is staggering isn’t it ….

Of the 16,854 households in Warrington where the head of the household is 65 years or older, an astounding 12,967 (or 76.9%) of those are owned, which is just above the national average of 74.1%, which sounds great – yet nothing could be further from the truth.

I chat with many Warrington pensioners who would like to move but cannot, as there is a scarcity of such properties for Warrington mature people to downsize into. Due to their scarcity and high demand, Warrington bungalows on average get a 12% to 22% premium per square metre premium over two storey properties. To add insult to injury, a recent NHBC reported that only 1% of new builds in the Country were single storey bungalows (compared to 7% in the mid 1990’s).

Warrington OAP’s are sitting on £2,774.9m of equity in these Warrington homes

In a survey conducted a couple of years ago by YouGov, they established that just over one third of homeowning people aged 65 and over in the Country were looking to downsize into a smaller home. Yet, the Tory’s over the last nine years have appeared to target all their attention on first-time buyers with stratagems such as Starter Homes to safeguard the youngsters of the UK not becoming perpetual members of ‘Generation Rent’. Equally though, this doesn’t address the long-lasting under-supply of suitable retirement housing essential to the needs of the Warrington’s hastily ageing population. Lamentably, the Warrington’s housing stock is tragically unprepared for this demographic shift to the 'overextended middle age’, and this has created a new 'Generation Confined’ quandary where older people cannot move.

Also, those older Warrington retirees’ who do live in the limited number of Warrington bungalows are finding it difficult to live on their own, as they are unable to leave their bungalow because of a lack of sheltered housing and ‘affordable’ care home places.

Meaning those older Warrington retirees can't leave their Warrington bungalows, younger Warrington retirees in their larger 2 storey family houses can't buy those Warrington bungalows (occupied by the older retirees) and those Warrington people in the 30’s and 40’s can't buy those larger 2 storey family houses (occupied by the younger retirees) they need to for their growing families ... it’s like everyone is waiting for everyone because of the bottleneck at the top.

For those wanting to see the complete stats for Warrington as whole …

Warrington’s (and the rest of the UK’s) property prices have soared over the last 50 years because the number of properties built has not kept up with demand. With restrictive planning regulations, migration, people living longer and excessive divorce rates (meaning one family becomes two) we need, as a Country, 240,000 properties to be built a year since the Millennium to just stand still.

At the turn of the Millennium, the Country was constructing on average 180,000 to 190,000 households a year, that figure dropped in the five years after the Credit Crunch to 135,000 and 145,000 households a year. Although we built 217,000 last year, we still have all those 19 years to make up for.

The answer …. allow more land for starter homes, bungalows and sheltered accommodation because land prices are stifling the property market as the large building firms are more likely to focus on traditional houses and apartments than bungalows (because they make more money from them).

My thoughts for the savvy Warrington property investors – until the Government change the planning rules and allow more land to be built on – Bungalows, especially ones that need some TLC after someone has passed away bungalows are a great bet for flipping and even potential rental returns for future property investment as more and more OAP’s will be renting in the decades to come?

Thursday, 19 September 2019

Are Warrington Builder’s Constructing the Wrong Type of Property?

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The British housing market has never been so newsworthy. Every other day, there is an article in the newspaper or online about impending house price drops, house price rises, building on green belt, mortgage rates up/down, first time buyer affordability and the woes of being a buy to let landlord, to mention but a few. As a nation, we have a strong national desire to be homeowners.
The English Housing Survey stated the proportion of owner occupied households increased steadily from 52% in the early 1980s to 2003 when it reached its peak of 71%. Since then, owner occupation gradually declined to 63% in 2014, yet in fact increased to 64% in 2017 and has stayed there since.

One of the main motives of home ownership is the prospective tax-free capital appreciation that can be obtained. It’s no wonder the phrase ‘as safe as houses’ is popular in the English language, as many homeowners use homeownership as a nest egg or even a pension pot, as savings rates are at extraordinarily low levels.

Yet even with the news that homeownership is on the rise, the biggest seismic shift to the Warrington property market is the growth of the rental market, which has more than doubled in the last 15/20 years. So how can the social housing sector (Council Housing) remain roughly at the same level since the millennium, homeownership slightly grow, yet the private rental sector be so huge? Well it comes down to the fact that many more homes have been built in Warrington in the last 15/20 years, and a lot of them have been bought for buy to let, or Warrington homeowners with second hand starter homes have also sold them to buy to let landlords and they have bought larger brand new homes.

Yet the question we wanted to ask is ... are we building the right sort of homes, especially when it comes to the number of bedrooms? Whilst the data doesn’t exist for Warrington, the country’s stats are available and it makes fascinating reading...

Looking at the graph in 2008, 59% of new homes built were one and two beds, yet last year that had dropped to 35%.

The Housing Minster said recently he was concerned that new homebuilders were building the wrong types of homes in the wrong places at the wrong prices. Many (not all) tenants are tenants because they can’t afford the deposit and as there is a direct coloration between the rent’s landlords charge and tenant’s earnings (i.e. as earnings go up, rents go up and vice versa), and earnings for the last seven years have been subdued, the property tenants have been able to afford in Warrington are the smaller one and two bed properties. Yet a lot of these tenants are now having families (with the need for larger property with three, even four bedrooms).

Looking at the stats for Warrington, it can be seen the vast majority of homeowners live in the larger properties with more bedrooms, whilst private rental tenants are in the smaller properties (with less bedrooms).

Our concern is - will young families and professionals be able to afford to live and work in Warrington, especially as the local authorities are unable to build council housing (aka Social Housing)?

One symptom of all these issues mentioned above is the massive growth in multi-family households (i.e. households containing two or more families), which have increased by 42% in under a decade. Now of course many will be because of older couples moving in with their adult children yet many are unrelated families sharing a house, something that simply shouldn’t be happening in 2019.

If we don’t increase the supply of the ‘right’ sort of homes, what will their living conditions be like?

Whilst we are still a country of homeowners and even though there has been a slight growth in numbers, the long term trend is downwards if we don’t build enough of the ‘right’ new homes, in the ‘right’ location and the ‘right’ price, Warrington people will continue to increasingly rent ... which is only good news for Warrington buy to let landlords.

Thursday, 5 September 2019

How Many Warrington Homeowners Have Paid Their Mortgage Off?

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The Government’s Annual Housing Survey is 50 years old this year. It has taken a snap shot of the UK’s property market every year since 1969 and in the recently published report for 2018, it wasn’t a surprise that owner occupation is still the most predominant tenure, yet now more people own their home without a mortgage rather than having a mortgage as the number people buying their first home (obviously with a mortgage) has declined since the Millennium. The report also shows homeowners (mortgaged and owned outright) are, on average, older than renters and between the homeowners themselves, those who are mortgage free are older than those with a mortgage.

Looking at the most recent of data for Warrington, I wanted to see how we compared to the national picture. Therefore, focusing on the main 4 tenures of owned outright, owned with a mortgage, social housing (i.e. Council Housing and Housing Association) and private rented, this is what I found out...

Looking at the stats, you can see that homeownership in Warrington and council area as a whole (both owned and owned with a mortgage combined) is lower in the 25yo to 34yo age range compared to 35yo to 49yo, yet roll the clock back to the 1980s and opposite was the case.

So how many local homeowners have paid off their mortgage?

44.2% of Warrington homeowners are mortgage free, yet of the 18,560 households that are owned by 50yo to 64yo in Warrington, 51.8% of those people still have a mortgage.

As most people bought their first house in their early to mid 20’s back in the 1980’s, this shows that a lot of Warrington people must have re-mortgaged in the past and extended their borrowings (otherwise they should have paid their mortgage off now).

The other thing that concerns me is the 5.9% of the Warrington over 75yo homeowners that have a mortgage.

If you amalgamate the national historic ranges going back to 1977 (see the graph below “UK Households with a Mortgage by Age – 1977 to 2018” and note the age bands are slightly different to the recent local stats because they were carried out under different government departments), you will see the number of people who own a property with a mortgage has been dropping since the Millennium, yet nationally the number of people who own a property has remained roughly the same, even with the growth of the private rented sector.

Reports in the industry suggest that in the next ten years that will increase, as nearly 1 in 5 homeowners will be still paying off their mortgage after retirement. One of the reasons behind that will be the legacy of interest-only loans and delayed first-time buying as we become more and more like Germany in our house ownership models, where people naturally rent their homes until their 50’s and then buy when they inherit money from their parents.

In the meantime, demand for Warrington rental properties will only increase … so good news for Warrington Buy to Let landlords and indirectly Warrington homeowners as well.

Friday, 23 August 2019

Is Warrington Too Densely Populated?

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Has England’s green and pleasant land all of a sudden become England’s green and overcrowded land?

With the nation’s ever-increasing population and the double whammy that people are now living longer, this means as each year goes by, there is an ever-growing strain on public services and in particular my favourite topic - housing. It’s no wonder some people are saying things are at crisis point when it comes to infrastructure (like roads, schooling etc) and in particular housing. I hear it all the time, people complaining that Warrington looks like a building site and, we are packing people in like sardines into our Warrington homes. Yet I wanted to find out exactly what the truth was.

Starting with the UK as a whole, there 698 people per square mile whilst in England, there are 1,103 people per square and finally in Greater London 14,587 people per square mile … these all sound quite awful numbers, until you drill down and realise a square mile is an awfully big area - there are only 93,600 square miles in the whole of the UK and that includes the wilderness areas of Scotland!

Let’s look at more realistic areas of land ... and I want to look at my favourite - the acre. To those born after the mid 1970’s, an acre is roughly half the size of a football pitch or a square roughly 63 metres by 63 metres and there are just less than 2.5 acres in a hectare.

The population of Warrington is 165,456 and the total area of Warrington is 11,092 acres, meaning 14.92 people live per acre in Warrington

So, how does that compare to neighbouring areas and towns...

As you can see, only just under 15 people live per acre in Warrington, interesting when compared to both Greater London, which has density of 23.26 people per acre and London’s most crowded suburb, Pimlico at 92.32 people per acre. Yet even Pimlico is nothing to the Collblanc district in Barcelona, which has 214.8 people living it per acre.

So, is Warrington over populated? Yes, it seems that way at school time or rush hour when sitting in traffic that Warrington is over populated – yet the stats show - we aren’t.

Evidently, we are never going to have an even spread of population as can be seen from the figures in the table, and the remote nature of some parts of the Country would not be able to withstand high densities of new people without enormous infrastructure investment.

Yet could we accommodate a much larger population in the UK (and Warrington) although there would be trade-offs? Look back at the 17^th and 18^th century and certain sectors of society were warning about population growth. The population of the UK in 1801 was 10.5 million and even with the growth of the population since then, only 1.2% of the UK is currently built on for housing purposes.

The question, it seems to me, is not can we manage but how

would a larger Warrington population change our way of life,

both for better and possibly worse?

The planners have a responsibility to ensure Warrington provides its fair share of new homes to accommodate this population growth in the coming years. The local authority has a responsibility towards adequate provision of the infrastructure of roads, hospitals and schools etc., to match the growth in housing. This is not a political topic and I hope once the ‘B’ word is finally sorted we can get on with addressing the shortage of affordable new homes for future generations.

Friday, 9 August 2019

Which Street in Warrington has seen the most homeowners moving in the last 3 years?

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Lots of people say moving home is one of the top ten most stressful events in your life. Fortunately, there is a way to mitigate your stress. In a nutshell, start as early as you can, plan ahead and do everything you can to make it easy on yourself, your family and even the family pet. As an agent in Warrington, my team and myself have been helping homeowners, landlords, buyers and tenants move, sell and let their Warrington homes for many years. So I thought I would share some top tips for making your move as stress free as possible – then find out which streets in Warrington have moved the most in the last 3 years.

The first tip is to plan ahead and write a list; because whilst it is taking between 15 and 20 weeks at the moment from finding a buyer to moving, those few weeks will fly by in no time as day to day life carries on. Next, get yourself a decent home removal company as they are worth their weight in gold on moving day – and if you need to know a good one in Warrington - drop me a line and I will let you know who my clients are raving about.

Next, a cluttered Warrington home doesn’t sell or let well, so maybe consider decluttering before you market the property. It will sell/let better and when it comes to the move – the job will be so much easier. Know where you plan to put all your important documents (like Passports and Bank PIN etc). Tell your utility providers and it is a good idea to create electronic copies of significant documents by scanning and saving them onto a USB stick and don’t forget to get your mail redirected.

On the day of moving home stress levels will be high and I know you will want to get everything packed away and have the tea on by 5.30pm! Those who have moved many times know that isn’t the case. Be realistic, as it’s doubtful you are going to unpack all your boxes in your new home by the end of the first day.

Make sure to keep your ‘Moving Day Survival Equipment’ close by, change of clothes, wash equipment, cold bottles of water, biscuits, kettle, tea/coffee/milk, crisps (even G&T??) to keep your spirits, morale and energy up – you will be fine.. but it will take a few days to completely unpack and get your new Warrington home the way you would like it to be. As long as you have your bed set up and made by the end of moving day - you can have the rest of the weekend to get ship shape.

So, which street or road in Warrington (WA2 to be more precise) has put themselves through one of the most stressful moments in their life over the last 3 years? Which street has seen the most home moves and experienced the trials of moving home.

Poplars Avenue comes in at the top spot, with 39 home movers in the last 36 months with a total property value of £4,117,000 sold, interestingly there are 517 properties on the road … so have a look at the top 20 and see if your street is in the Top 20!

… but before you go, if you do need any help or guidance about moving home or advice about the current state of the Warrington property market, then feel free to drop me a line or read the other articles in my blog on the Warrington Property market.