Are Huddersfield House Prices Set to Fall this Autumn?

 The stamp duty holiday is over, furlough finished at the end of September, unemployment is due to rise and inflation is rife … is this the end of the post lockdown Huddersfield property boom?

 

Surely, we are heading for house price correction?

 

Forecasting what will happen in the Huddersfield property market this autumn may not be as simple as it first appears.

 

It’s true the Huddersfield property market is starting to settle down after an all-time number of property deals were completed in June.

 

More Huddersfield people will have moved home in 2021 than in any year since 2007, with an estimated 1.5 million home buyers nationally having bought a property.

 

Roll the clock back to last Christmas, and the Government’s Office for Budget Responsibility, projected that national house prices would drop between 6% and 8%.

 

By Christmas, the price of an average home

in Huddersfield will be about £199,300,

up 4.9% on last Christmas.

 

Let us not forget there were so many ambiguities at the start of 2021. We were about to start a 5-month lockdown, hospitals were bursting at the seams with patients, the vaccines hadn’t started, 4 in 10 employers had furloughed their staff and we had just had Brexit ... things didn’t look good.

 

Yet, nothing could be further from the truth 10 months later – the Huddersfield property market has been on fire. But after a heated summer in the Huddersfield property market, things certainly can’t carry on as they have been since the end of lockdown.

 

So, where are we with the Huddersfield property market as it stands? Taking reference from historical data on the website The Advisory (I would certainly recommend you check it out) …

 

68% of properties on the market today in Huddersfield

are sold subject to contract (stc).

 

How does this compare to October 2019 and October 2017?

 

In October 2017, 36% of Huddersfield properties were sold stc,

 whilst in October 2019, 35% of properties were sold stc.

 

Yet how does that compare to the national picture?

 

In 2017, 39.72% of the country’s properties for sale were sold stc whilst in 2019, that figure was 38.11%.

 

Now I love a good league table, so then decided to compare our locality to the rest of the country.

So, I chose to look at the HD7 postcode specifically. For information, there are 2,234 postcode districts in the country.

 

The 2021 sold stats put HD7 in at 365^th place in

the country, 986^th in 2017 and 1,346^th in 2019

… meaning we have improved from the 2017 and 2019 figures.

 

As we enter the last 3 months of the year, there are not so many uncertainties as there were at the start of 2021. On the good news front, 49 million Brits have had at least one jab (45m two jabs) and the UK will be the world’s fastest growing advanced economy this year according to the IMF.

 

Conversely, the furlough scheme ended at the end of September and with energy prices going through the roof, a real shortage of homes for sale (as I have discussed a number of times in recent blogs) and rising inflation on the back of a shortage of raw materials and trained staff, forecasting this and what will happen to Huddersfield house prices might not be as easy as it seems.

 

Post stamp duty holiday, it is now recognised that the majority of the demand for people moving home is focused by a profound unhappiness and frustration with the homes we live in, revealed during the first lockdown in 2020.

 

Buyers (and tenants – so take note Huddersfield buy-to-let landlords) want space ... in fact, three types of space … and they will pay handsomely for them!

 

·         Office space (be that bedroom or study)

·         Outside space (gardens or proximity to green areas)

·         Broadband with ‘outa-space’ download speeds

 

And whilst there is a shortage of properties coming on to the market, demand and supply economics

mean …

 

Huddersfield house prices should remain relatively stable going into 2022.

 

The number of properties coming onto the market in Huddersfield is slowly improving, yet not enough to diminish house values.

 

Also, don’t forget Huddersfield first-time buyers still have stamp duty relief all to themselves again and mortgages are cheap. At the beginning of the 2020 lockdown (Spring 2020), mortgage providers removed their higher risk 5% deposit mortgages for fear of a housing market crash. Currently, the vast majority of these low 5% deposit mortgages are back, together with the Governments own 5% deposit mortgages.

 

Yet many Huddersfield homeowners are concerned about inflation

and its effect on their mortgage payments.

 

Inflation is important because if inflation gets too high, the Bank of England will need to raise interest rates to reduce inflation. Because mortgage payments are based on the Bank of England interest rate, higher mortgage payments will affect what people can afford. Normally the higher the mortgage rate, the less likely house prices are to increase (and in fact if interest rates are too high, house prices will fall).

 

Whilst I can’t give you advice, with the Bank of England base rate at a 300-year historic low of 0.1%, I’m still surprised that nearly 3 in 10 Huddersfield homeowners with mortgages are not on a fixed rate mortgage. There has never been a better time to get a fixed rate mortgage, as there are deals out there with interest rates as low as 1%. This means even if interest rates do go up in the short term, you will be protected from higher mortgage costs. Anyway, back to inflation.

Inflation did rise quite quickly and steeply in 2008/9

but came back down within a year.

 

This was because of a shortage of staff and raw materials during the Credit Crunch of 2008/9, the very same issues we are experiencing at the moment in Q4 2021. The type of inflation (yes, there are types of inflation!) in 2008/9 was called ‘push inflation’. Whilst inflation is not great, ‘push inflation’ could be described the better type of inflation (as long as is it doesn’t go on for too long).

 

The economic crippling hyper-inflation seen in the 1970s was ‘pull inflation’. The circumstances that create ‘pull inflation’ are not being experienced at the moment buy in the UK. This is good news because ‘pull inflation’ is bad inflation, which in turn would create massive problems to the UK economy as a whole.

 

Therefore, whilst inflation will probably rise to 4% - 5% by Christmas, I don’t believe the Bank of England will raise interest rates substantially as the message we are hearing from them is they see this as a short-term blip.

 

Opportunities for Huddersfield buy-to-let landlords?

 

Ultra-low mortgage rates and a booming rental market is encouraging more Huddersfield buy-to-let landlords to expand their rental portfolios, yet their strategy is changing. Yields are increasing as there is a shortage of rental properties, driving up rents. Also, there are Huddersfield landlords looking to exit the rental market, often because they want to liquidate their portfolio for retirement. These portfolios don’t make it onto Rightmove and get sold ‘off market’.

 

Therefore, if you are a serious Huddersfield buy-to-let landlord and you’re looking to expand your own portfolio, it’s really important to put yourselves on the mailing list of estate agents and also build up great one-to-one relationships with the same agents to ensure that you’re at the front of the queue for these off market rental portfolios and not at the back.

 

To conclude, nobody knows the answer to what will happen to the property market in Huddersfield as we go into 2022. There are many factors that could affect the market in a positive and negative way, yet buying property is always a long-term investment (be it for yourself or to rent), so if you need any advice or opinion on what you should do, drop me a line or pop into the office and we can discuss the options you have over a cup of coffee.

 

Huddersfield Buy-to-Let Market on the Rise as Returns Rise by 41.1% in 5 Years

Huddersfield landlords are becoming progressively more self-assured about expanding their rental portfolios; as Huddersfield rents rise, mortgage interest rates fall and demand for decent Huddersfield rental properties outstrips supply.

 

A number of reports nationally would suggest around a third of UK ‘portfolio’ landlords (i.e. landlords with more than one rental property) are actively looking to expand their rental portfolios in the next 12 to 18 months, that would locally mean …

 

1,725 Huddersfield ‘portfolio’ landlords are looking to add to

their rental portfolio by the end of 2022.

 

The pandemic has had a substantial change to what we want from a home. Many people think that relates just to homeowners, yet nothing could be further from the truth as it also applies to tenants.

 

Homeowner or tenant, many of us have spent a lot of time away from places of work. Many office workers face the outlook of the combination of working from home as well as at the office, meaning a change in what people look for in their home. People (including tenants) are looking for larger properties, with extra rooms for office space and decent sized gardens or to be closer to outside green space.

 

So, let’s look at the ‘scores on the doors’ as to why Huddersfield landlords are on the up …

 

Huddersfield house prices are 24.7% higher than 5 years ago.

 

Because some Huddersfield first-time buyers are being priced out of the market due to these house price rises, they are being forced back into the rental market. Add the extra demand of the 1 in 10 Huddersfield house sellers who, in the last 12 months, have had to go into rented accommodation instead of buying, and this has created increased demand, meaning …

 

Rents today in Huddersfield are 7.2% higher than a year ago

and 16.4% higher than 5 years ago.

 

The average rent of a Huddersfield property today is £762 pcm.

 

In previous articles on the Huddersfield property market, I was talking about the lack of properties to buy – yet that issue is also there in the British rental property market. Now let’s look at the supply of rental properties.

Would it surprise you that the number of private rented homes in the UK has fallen in the last 12 months by just over 2.5%?

 

Why? One reason has been many ‘accidental’ landlords have used this housing market to sell their property for a good price. That means the supply of available rental properties has decreased. The perfect storm of increased demand and lower supply, and with many Huddersfield tenants competing for those larger Huddersfield homes, they may find Huddersfield rental prices pick up even more over the next year.

 

What about buy-to-let mortgages for Huddersfield landlords?

 

The banks all but withdrew from buy-to-let lending in the first lockdown. Yet, since last summer things have settled down and during 2021 there has been a mortgage price war.

 

Huddersfield landlords can borrow 60% of the value of their BTL property on a two-year fixed rate of 1.18% from Platform and even those with a 20% deposit (that’s borrowing 80%) can borrow that money at 2.49% 2-year fixed rate from The Mortgage Works. Those looking to fix for a little longer can get 1.44% from The Mortgage Works and 1.79% at 75% loan to value from Santander.

 

(It must be noted there are some fees to these mortgages, and you must take advice from a qualified mortgage advisor before deciding which mortgage is best for you).

 

So, is now the best time to invest in Huddersfield buy-to-let property?

 

If you are attracted to invest in Huddersfield buy-to-let, it’s vital to do your homework first – particularly if you are new to the game.

 

When estimating the expected rental returns on investment, capital growth and yields, many Huddersfield landlords look to what has happened with house prices and rental prices, yet past performance does not always deliver a future guaranteed return.

 

Smart Huddersfield landlords will speak with agents like myself and others in Huddersfield, prudently researching the Huddersfield property market to discover what types of properties are in high demand (and short supply) from tenants.

 

Whether you are a landlord of ours or not, please feel free to drop me a line via email or social media for no nonsense advice on the important matters to look out for before investing in Huddersfield buy-to-let.

Why Are More Brighouse OAP Homeowners Deciding Not to Move Home?

A recent report by Legal & General stated that since the pandemic, many older homeowners had put their plans to move home 'on ice'. It said that fewer OAP homeowners are planning to downsize from their large family homes after the pandemic made them realise the actual value of their local community and space.

 

Historically, many OAPs move home to another part of the country to live near their grown-up children. Yet the pandemic has shown that OAPs can live quite well locally without moving to a strange new town to live near their children. The support networks of their friends in their existing community has emphasised the significance and importance of having friends close by.

 

Yet this trend isn't just for OAPs moving away. Many Brighouse OAPs who aren't moving away from Brighouse (because their family is still local) are also deciding to stay put longer for the same reasons. Even though they are rattling around their large 3 and 4 bed detached family homes, they love the space their large Brighouse homes offer.

 

And for those Brighouse OAPs who are wanting to move, the issue is that the choice of properties they could buy to downsize is limited. This scarcity of properties for sale, called the 'housing crunch’, can be seen by that lack of choice of properties for OAPs to move to.

 

Only 19 bungalows are for sale

within a half a mile radius of Brighouse

 

In a 'normal' Brighouse property market, I would expect this to be double or even triple this number.

 

All these factors combined means these OAP "eternal homeowners" threaten to make the scarcity of properties coming on to the market even worse!

 

So, why is this an issue for everyone else?

 

Well, because Brighouse OAPs aren’t moving from their large 3 and 4 bed detached homes to smaller bungalows or ground floor apartments, this is creating a blockage on the housing ladder. Brighouse families, in their 30’s and 40’s, are desperate for larger 3 and 4 bed detached homes for their ever-expanding families. But if the OAP sellers of those family houses aren’t moving, they will remain overcrowded in their existing homes.

 

Let’s look at the numbers first.

 

·         There are 4.42m UK over-65 property owners, and their properties are worth a combined £1.53 trillion (which covers just under three-quarters of the national debt).

 

·         71.3% of those aged 65 and over own their home (although 1 in 10 still has a mortgage).

 

·         There are 4,217 Brighouse homes occupied by OAPs, representing 28.2% of all the households in Brighouse (notable compared to the UK average of 31%).

 

·         87.9% of those Brighouse OAPs are retired, meaning the rest are still working! (The national average is 83.4%).

 

·         The total value of the property in Brighouse owned by OAPs is £572.5m.

 

·         68.2% of Brighouse OAPs own their home outright (compared to the national average of 65.8%), and 4.6% of Brighouse OAPs own their home, albeit with a mortgage (compared to the national average of 5.5%).

 

Many Brighouse OAP homeowners simply love the house and neighbourhood they live in, often living in their homes for over 25+ years. I talk to many mature Brighouse homeowners who say they are afraid to put their home on the market, because they believe (incorrectly) if they find a buyer for their home and can’t find another property to go to ... they would be made homeless.

I can only share my opinions on the matter. The one thing I have seen in my years in the property market is that so many Brighouse people leave it too late to move home. So, when they do move, they aren’t fit enough to do all the jobs in their new home. Indeed, is it better to move home in your late 60's/early 70's, meaning you can still do the little things to make your new house a home, rather than in your late 70's/early 80’s and find the jobs are much harder to do?

Also, if you are worried about finding your next home, get yourself on the mailing lists of all the Brighouse estate agents.  A recent study showed only 1 in 6 buyers were on an agent’s mailing list for the property they bought. Therefore, by being on the mailing list, you will get to know of any suitable properties coming on the market before most others. This is important in this housing market; a property is often sold STC before it hits Rightmove (to a buyer that put themselves on the agent’s mailing list).

By downsizing, you could use the additional funds to top up your pension, take the family on a holiday of a lifetime (once it’s safe to do so of course), or help your children get on the housing ladder themselves with a deposit for their own home.

I fully appreciate many of the 3,063 OAP homeowners in Brighouse have many reasons to stay, be that sentimental, friendship, support networks etc. My advice to all of you is to do your homework, put yourselves on the mailing lists of agents (in case the property of your dreams comes up) and do what is best for you. By downsizing, you are giving yourself better options for your quality of life and massive opportunities to spend more time on the things you enjoy like your family, holidays, or even helping others.

The choice, as they say, is yours.

 

If you are a Brighouse homeowner and want to ask me anything about what I have said, please drop me a line to discuss the matter further at no cost or obligation.

Huddersfield Homeowners Have Turned to the Rental Market to Cash In By £6,800 Each

Should you sell or should you buy in this most interesting Huddersfield property market?

 

I have calculated that at least 195 Huddersfield house sellers have rented a home to break their house chain in the last 12 months, although at a cost as they face paying many thousands of pounds in rent. 

 

There are a number of reasons behind this. One is because they cannot find another Huddersfield property to buy amidst a continuing shortage of new Huddersfield properties coming to the market. Although, there are others who have achieved such a high price for their home they have decided to cash in and are (hopefully for them) waiting for the Huddersfield property market drop?

 

Or will it drop? (More on that later).

 

Those selling their home have seen the …

 

average Huddersfield home rise in value in the

last 12 months by £6,800.

 

Yet, if they have had to go into private renting, they have paid for that privilege in the rent they have had to pay.

 

The average cost of a six-month rental agreement in Huddersfield is £4,141, meaning accidental Huddersfield tenants have pumped £807,465 into the Huddersfield rental market in the last 12 months.

 

The unevenness between the number of properties for sale and demand for them is at its widest since the early 2000’s. Whilst we have seen a slight improvement in the number of properties for sale in Huddersfield, there are still…

 

37% fewer homes up for sale today in Huddersfield,

compared to August last year.

 

This serious shortage of Huddersfield property for sale is discouraging some hesitant Huddersfield homeowners from putting their property on to the housing market, anxious they will not be able to find their next home and will be left renting.

 

Yet some savvy Huddersfield homeowners are moving into a rented property as a way to navigate the shortage of properties to buy. If you have someone offering you top dollar for your Huddersfield home, whilst you will have the hassle of two moves, the increase in value of your Huddersfield home will more than offset the rent. 

 

Also, when you come to buy your next Huddersfield home, you will be chain free and in pole position to buy your ‘forever home’, rather than being overlooked for the home because you are sold stc and burdened with a chain.

 

Yet this trend has made life tougher for long-term Huddersfield tenants.

 

On average there were normally 550 to 650 properties available to rent in Huddersfield on Rightmove at any one time (pre-pandemic), today there are only 275 available.

 

To give you an idea of how this has affected the Huddersfield rental market, with heightened demand and lower supply, demand for rental properties has grown to such an extent …

 

the average rent in Huddersfield has grown from £690 per month

a year ago to £735 per month today.

 

 

Tenants are suffering from less choice and higher rents in the Huddersfield property rental market, with few indications it’s going to significantly ease on the run up to Christmas.

 

So, what is going to happen to the Huddersfield property market? 

 

Well, those of you that follow me know I regularly write about the Huddersfield property market in my property blog. If you would like some recent articles I have written about the future of the local property, either drop me a line and I will send you some links to those posts, send me a DM or contact me by telephone.

 

In the meantime, please do share your thoughts on the matter in the comments.

 

How Many Days Does It Take to Sell a Huddersfield Home?

 Whether you are a Huddersfield homeowner, first-time buyer or landlord; the last 15 months has been a roller coaster ride when it comes to the Huddersfield property market.

 

With 213,120 UK house buyers and 58,580 UK tenants moving home in June, the summer has been manic for many people. Meaning some Huddersfield homeowners are asking if they should be staying put? Or should they wait for the best home to come onto the market before putting their home up for sale or find a buyer but be unable to find a property – it’s all rather confusing.

 

Then we have some Huddersfield landlords who are asking themselves if they should buy another property investment (and some even wondering if they should sell and cash in on the boom) and then finally, with 95% mortgages back, first-time buyers are asking if they should look to take the plunge and buy their first home or wait.

 

In this article, I hope I can help you with the decisions you might want to make and to navigate this unusual post lockdown housing market. Let me start with some stats to show you what is happening at the moment in Huddersfield.

 

The average time it takes to sell a Huddersfield property in

this housing market is 25 days.

 

Interesting when compared with nearby Rastrick at 22 days, Elland at 17 days, Honley at 15 days and Brighouse at 24 days.

 

Look back five years, it took 59 days on average to sell a Huddersfield home – the local property market is now certainly ‘cooking on gas’!

 

The property market has certainly solidified a little over the last few weeks. The Stamp Duty holiday rush has seen its run and the pent-up post-Brexit and more importantly post-lockdown demand has receded and although I am still observing competing offers on most Huddersfield properties, I can certainly get a feeling of a small shift in the balance-of-power between the seller and buyer.

 

Many people have put their house hunting on hold as they go on their first holiday since 2019, be that glamping in Cornwall or having days out on a ‘staycation’. That means between now and mid-September, depending on what type of property you are looking for, many buyers could well discover that there are fewer competitors for their next home than there might be.

 

Also, July and August are notoriously barren months for estate agents putting new properties up for sale. Yet since the typical ‘seasonal property market’ is so out of kilter as a result of the pandemic, many agents are taking on a decent number of very good properties now, which is not something that characteristically would have happened in the summer months.

 

The important thing is not to wait for the property to hit the portals (i.e. Rightmove etc). Yet research shows, nearly 5 out of 6 people who bought their home were not on the agents mailing list before they viewed the home they eventually bought. That’s OK in a normal property market as you can wait until it hits Rightmove or Zoopla, yet these are unprecedented times and if you are not on an agent’s mailing list – you will miss out on properties.

 

If you don’t put yourself on the agent’s mailing lists, you will

end up losing out on the property of your dreams.

 

So, the question is should you put your Huddersfield home on the market first or wait for the right property to come along?

 

Roll the clock back a few years and it was standard practice for people to wait for their dream home to come onto the market, then put theirs on and hope that it would sell in time. This housing market is different and only those who are in a position to proceed (cash buyers or those sold subject to contract) will be considered as serious buyers.

 

Yet, nobody wants to be homeless if they do sell.

 

Estate agents are returning back to their old skills from the 1980s and 1990s by chain building. By starting at the bottom of the chain of the smaller house and building up a chain, waiting for everybody to find their next homes, nobody need be made homeless.

 

This is not an issue because most house sales are taking on average between 20 and 25 weeks and as long as everybody communicates with each other and everyone knows where they are, then normally things go through, albeit slower. Can you believe it – estate agents really are earning their money with this!

 

So what Huddersfield homes are selling the fastest?

 

Huddersfield Terraced and Town Houses are selling in 29 days

Huddersfield Semi-Det Houses are selling in 21 days

Huddersfield Detached Houses are selling in 42 days

Huddersfield Apartments are selling in 100 days

 

Huddersfield landlords, maybe there are some bargains to be had on some apartments with that length of time on the market? Again, do your homework or even consider picking up the phone to me for a chat.

 

So, there you have it. The lessons I hope you have now learnt from this are to put yourself on agent’s mailing lists, talk to agents about your requirements so you get the heads up first when a property is coming on to the market (don’t just do everything over a computer screen) and once you have found a property be a little bit more patient with how long it takes to build a chain and then get the property through to an exchange and completion so you get the keys to your forever home.

 

Whether you are a Huddersfield homeowner, Huddersfield landlord or first-time buyer and would like some advice and opinion on your circumstances in the current Huddersfield property market, please don’t hesitate to either pick up the phone or drop me a message.

 

To everyone else, what are your thoughts on the Huddersfield property market?

Only 1 in 19 Huddersfield Properties are Bungalows, Despite an Ageing Population. Why?

The bungalow is a building that has represented a more leisurely, gentler way of life since the early 1900’s. Bungalows have been sold as an aspiration for those about to retire, saving them the annoyance of having to climb stairs. With an ageing population, one would think they would be building more bungalows, yet nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, this could be one of the main issues that is holding back many mature homeowners moving home, thus creating a bottleneck in the Huddersfield property market for the younger families who are being held back and unable to move into the larger homes they so need to grow their families.

 

So, before I answer that question, let me share this fascinating fact about bungalows. The word ‘bungalow’ originated in India, not the UK. The name is derived from the Hindi word ‘baṅglā’ or the Gujarati word ‘baṅglo’, both of which seem to refer to a home occupied by a Bengali person. The colonial English started to use it for themselves in the late 1600s to describe the same sort of basic lodgings that sailors and staff of the invading East India Company used.

 

Anyway, back to the here and now in Huddersfield.

 

There are 3,645 Bungalows in Huddersfield.

 

When you consider there are 69,144 properties in Huddersfield, that means only 5.27% of property in Huddersfield are bungalows.

 

To give you an idea of the age demographic of Huddersfield homeowners, there are 18,568 Huddersfield homeowners aged 65 years old (and over) and 22,383 Huddersfield homeowners aged between 50 and 64 years of age.

 

You can see demand for bungalows is only expected to grow.  Yet new homes builders are having to deal with soaring land prices meaning to get a profit from the site, they are under pressure to build more vertically than horizontally as with bungalows (as bungalows take up so much more land).

 

The last available data is from 2018 and only 1.6% new builds in the UK were bungalows, interesting when it was just over 7% in the middle of the 1990s. As British people are living longer, those existing Huddersfield bungalow homeowners will be living in them longer, thus creating even more of a bottleneck in the Huddersfield property market.

 

So, what is the answer?

 

Well with building land in Huddersfield at a shortage, maybe new homes builders should be forced under planning rules to reserve ground floor apartments to be set aside for older people to encourage them to move out of larger houses. I would challenge the long-held point of view that building more bungalows in Huddersfield is the pre-eminent way to urge growing numbers of mature ‘last-time buyers’ to move out of their under-occupied Huddersfield homes and free up their large homes (where their children have flown the nest) for younger Huddersfield families to grow.

 

With the new Planning Regulations due to be in place in a couple of years, local authorities could require builders to set aside a share of homes for mature residents, as they are already obligated to subsidise local community facilities or low-cost social housing in return for obtaining their planning permission to build in the first place.

 

Another option would be to convert all those empty shops in our town and city centres up and down the country into residential use. There is no need for planning permission to change offices to residential property and the Government are considering the same for shops (although I have heard of some horror stories of those office to residential developments making rabbit hutches look spacious) – so again, it comes down to the planning laws and making them fit for purpose.

 

There are no doubt consequences of not designing our housing stock for the 21^st Century and beyond for older people.

 

The population of Huddersfield is set to grow

by 30,476 to 190,875 by 2040.

 

 

As the UK population gets older in the coming decades, as life expectancy is set to grow from 81 years 2 months to 83 years 3 months by 2040, I fully appreciate the need for more Huddersfield homes to be built for families, yet one must ask if the planning authorities are focusing too much on new housing for the younger generation, when they in fact should be encouraging new homes builders to develop larger, ground floor two-bedroom homes and decent accessible transport links.

 

These are my thoughts, what are yours the good people of Huddersfield?

 

Brighouse’s Love (and Hate) Affair with the Semi-Detached House

The semi-detached house – the icon of middle-class aspiration, the pinnacle of liberalism yet at the same time compromised individuality, the ‘semi’ as it is colloquially termed is, for many Brighouse homeowners, the highpoint of modern domestic bliss.

 

Britain’s gift to architecture is the humble ‘Semi-Detached House’. This type of property has been exported around the world with - the ‘Doppel Haus’ in Germany, the ‘Duplex’ in the USA, Canada and Australia. 

 

For those young, hip and trendy people living in your converted warehouses with strobe lighting and exposed brickwork, it might surprise you the semi is the dream home of an immense number of Brighouse people. In fact, it is the most common dwelling type in the British Isles, with 8,060,657 semi-detached homes occupied by Brits alone (representing 31.68% of all occupied property) compared to 23.81% detached, 25.49% terraced and 19.02% flats.

 

In Brighouse alone, there are 5,571 semi-detached houses meaning…

 

36.6% of properties in Brighouse are semi-detached.

 

 

So, when did the semi-detached house first come into play? Many people think the semi-detached boom started with mass swathes of the suburban mock Tudor bay-fronted semis being built between the first and second world wars. The fact is actually that rich landowners in the post Great Plague (1665+) years wished to house their farm labourers as inexpensively as possible, yet making their grand estates look as imposing as possible.

 

And that’s the point of a semi-detached house. Only half the property is yours, yet you ‘feel’ like you own it all.

 

The next phase of the semi-detached story, and a phase that really pushed home the point, were many of the late Georgian houses built around the Kensington Gardens area in West London. Many upper-middle class Georgians were wanting something more than the classic Georgian terraced house yet couldn’t afford a large detached home. Therefore, architects took the humble semi-detached house to the next stage of its evolution by masquerading the building itself as one home by slipping its two front doors down opposite sides of the building, making it look like one home from the front, to complete the impression of total ownership.

 

By Victorian times, semi-detached houses fell out fashion as the railways were building many of them for their railway workers and they became associated with the lower working classes, but speculative builders continued building semi-detached homes for the new lower middle class, that is the reason why ultimately the country is full of semi-detached homes today.

 

The semi-detached house was saved from the annals of history by the Bedford Park development in Ealing (London). Referred to as the world's first ‘garden suburb’ and started in the 1870’s, the architect of Bedford Park used influences of the Aesthetic Movement, the precursor to the Arts and Craft Movement to make the buildings look more pleasing on the eye. The architect also took reference from the style of properties from British history such as Queen Ann to be seen in such features as a sweep of steps leading to a carved stone door, rows of painted sash windows in boxes set flush with the brickwork and bright coloured brickwork with limestone stone quoins emphasising the building’s corner.

 

As the car enabled people to commute to work from further away, people wanted to get out of the big cities, thus giving rise to the interwar semi, with its mock Tudor fronted, rosemary tiled roof, oak beamed, herringbone brickwork and the leaded and stained glass windowpanes that we all recognise. It was Bedford Park that gave the green light for architects up and down the country to use old styles of building design to make their semi-detached houses look the part.

 

And now, in more modern times, the semi-detached house has gone from strength to strength.

 

2,688 of Brighouse semi-detached houses have changed hands since 1995, many upwards of 5 times (and a handful even more).

The semi continues to appeal, both to big national builders and smaller Brighouse developers, and most importantly to home buyers. The advantage of semi-detached houses over town houses/terraced houses or apartments is they afford access to their (typically bigger) gardens without having to pass through the house, and they have natural sunlight on three sides of the property, are easily extendable and quite often have a driveway.

And that’s at the heart of what a semi-detached house is all about, the schism or divide of the semi reveals the tension at the heart of owning your home, which on one side of the coin is a commodity/way to make money and on the other side, a vision to have your own castle, a piece of ground to call your own. It articulates both the craving for personal freedom and the inevitability of socio-economic life. What do I mean by that?

We may dream of owning a castle in many acres, with a drawbridge and moat, yet in real life we can only afford half a building plot sliced out by a volume national builder next to the A644.

I just love a semi-detached house! Style and substance combined.

What are your thoughts? Share your stories and opinions on the humble semi-detached house.