Value of Huddersfield Property Market falls £310.4m

The combined value of Huddersfield’s housing market has fallen by £310,390,500 in the last 6 months, meaning the average value of a Huddersfield property has decreased in value by an average of £5,250.  

This is great news for Huddersfield first time buyers and Huddersfield buy to let landlords, as there is a slight hesitation in the market because of the uncertainty over Brexit. As I have always said, investing in Huddersfield property, be it for you to live in or as a buy to let investment, is a long-term game. In the grand scheme of things, this minor change over the last 5 or 10 years is nothing.

The RICS’s latest survey of its Chartered Surveyor members showed that nationally the number of properties actually selling has dropped for the 16th month in a row. Locally in Huddersfield, certain sectors of the market are matching that trend, yet others aren’t. It really depends which price band and type of property you are looking for, as to whether it’s a buyers or sellers market.

The RICS also said its member’s lettings data showed a lower number of rental properties coming on to the market. Anecdotal evidence suggests that (and this is born out in the recent English Housing Survey figures) Huddersfield tenants over the last few years are stopping in their rental properties longer, meaning less are coming onto the market for rent. I have noticed locally, that where the landlord has gone the extra mile in terms of decoration and standard of finish, this has certainly helped push rents up (although those properties where the landlord has been remiss with improvements and standard of finish are in fact seeing rents drop). Huddersfield tenants are getting pickier – but will pay top dollar for quality. So much so, I believe there will be a cumulative rise of around fourteen to sixteen per cent over the course of the next five years in private rents for the best properties on the market.

Back to the Huddersfield Property Values though …

This drop in Huddersfield property values doesn’t particularly concern me. The fact is that over the last 6 months 820 properties have sold for a combined value of £136,750,580. You see, that drop must be seen in perspective in that 6 months ago, the total value of Huddersfield property stood at £10,489,366,118 (£10.49bn), and today it stands at £10,178,975,618 (£10.18bn) .. this change is a drop in the ocean.

In the short term, say over the next six months and assuming nothing silly happens in Korea, the Middle East or Brexit negotiations, it will be more of the same until the end of the year. In the meantime, the on-going challenges ensuring we as a Country build more homes (although the Office of National Statistics figures released in July showed nationally the number of new homes started to be built over the second Quarter of 2018 had dropped dramatically) makes me think that Huddersfield (and Nationally) property value is likely to recommence an upward trajectory as we go into 2019.

One final thought for all the buy to let landlords in Huddersfield (and indirectly this does affect all you Huddersfield homeowners too). I do hope the recent tax changes towards buy to let landlords don’t bite as deep as it is possibly starting to with certain landlords I know.  We talked about this in an article a few weeks ago and I know why the Government wanted to change the balance by taxing landlords and providing a lift for first time buyers .. however, this may well come at the expense of higher rents for those Huddersfield tenants that don’t become first time buyers, as the appeal of buy to let potentially weakens.

Huddersfield Property Market – How Does It Compare Historically to the Yorkshire and Humber and National Property Market’s?

Living in our own homes or owning buy to let property in Huddersfield and the surrounding areas, it’s often easy to ignore the regional and national picture when it comes to property. As a homeowner or landlord in Huddersfield, consideration must be given to these markets, as directly and indirectly, they do have a bearing on us in Huddersfield.
Locally, the value of property in Huddersfield and the number of people moving remain largely steady overall, although looking across at the different regions, there are certainly regional variations. Talking to fellow property professionals in the posh upmarket central London areas of Mayfair and Kensington, the number of people looking to buy and registering interest with agents is continuing to climb after 18 months in the doldrums, whilst in other parts of the UK, there is restraint amongst both buyers and sellers in some locations.
The things that affect the national property market are the big economic numbers. Nationally, over the last few months, thankfully, the economic forecast and predictions have improved, notwithstanding the Brexit uncertainties. Inflation has mercifully throttled back its high growth seen in 2016 to the current level of 2.1% (from 2.7% average last year), coupled with marginally stronger wage growth at 2.5%. Unemployment is at a 42-year low at 4.2% and UK consumer spending power rose to an all-time high last month to £331.04bn – all positives for consumer sentiment.
Look further afield, a resilient property market depends on the UK's economic health with the outside world, so if Sterling weakens, that makes imports more expensive, meaning inflation increases, and this matter I talked about a few weeks ago in my blog article ... interest rates could be raised to bring inflation under control, which in turn could seriously affect the property market. On the assumption Brexit negotiations are successful, economic growth should continue to be upward and positive, meaning confidence would be increased ... which is the vital element to a good housing market.
Looking closer to home now, Huddersfield landlords and Huddersfield homeowners might be interested in the how the regional and Huddersfield markets have performed over the last 20 years (compared to the National picture). Let’s look at the regional picture first,

Yorkshire and Humber has outperformed the Kirklees housing market by 7.67%...

...and nationally, the country has outperformed Kirklees by 8.62%

I found it interesting to see the ups and downs of the Huddersfield, Yorkshire and Humber and National markets in this graph. How the lines of graphs roughly go in the same direction, with Huddersfield following the regional trend more closely than the national trend to a certain point (as one would expect), how the 2007/08 property crash timings and effects were slightly different between the three lines and finally how the property markets performed in the post-crash years of 2011 to 2014 ... fascinating!

So, what does this all mean for Huddersfield homeowners and Huddersfield landlords?

Well, house prices going up or down are only an issue when you sell or buy. In the last 12 months, only 1,076,288 (let’s call it’s a straight million between friends!) properties changed hands out of 27.2 million households in the UK in 2017, meaning only 3.7% would have been affected if property values had dropped in the last year.

Property values in Huddersfield are 213.05% higher than the summer of 1998

Yet this has been a long-term gain. The number one lesson in property is that it is a long-term game.  The biggest issue in property isn’t house values or prices ... it’s the number of homes built, because the number of households nationally has only increased by 6% since 2007, whilst the population has grown by 7.6%. That doesn’t sound a lot, until you express it another way…

If the UK population had had only grown by the same percentage as the percentage growth in UK households in the last decade, there would be 1,000,000 less people living in the UK today

The final thought for this article is this, apart from central London, over the last 20 years it hasn’t mattered what part of the UK you were in with regards to the property market. Be you a landlord or homeowner, property is a long game, so look long term and you will win because until they start to build more homes, from the current levels of 180,000 new homes built per year to at least 250,000 households built per year, demand will, over the long term, outstrip supply for owning and renting!