28% Drop in Properties For Sale Today in Haywards Heath Compared to 10 Years Ago.

There is good news for Haywards Heath buy to let landlords as ‘top of the range’ well-presented properties are getting really decent rents compared to a year ago however, this rise in rents is thwarting many potential first time buyers from saving for both a deposit and money for a rainy day. On top of this, there is also a shortage of Haywards Heath homes coming on the market thus adding fuel to the slowdown and affecting not just Haywards Heath first time buyers but also those going up the housing ladder.

Whilst it is true that the Government’s initiatives, targeted at improving the supply of homes built and helping first time buyers obtaining necessary funding, are starting to work (albeit slowly), I also believe that to boost more existing home-owners and their properties onto the market, we as a country, need to see a better focus placed on those looking to downsize (i.e. the mature generation).

If we took away some hurdles to home owners downsizing, such as removing stamp duty for those downsizers (as was done for first time buyers last year), together with encouraging even more first-time buyers with 100% mortgages to buy the smaller properties, this would in turn release more mid-range properties onto the market, which subsequently would encourage more mature homeowners to downsize from their bigger properties to buy those mid-range properties - thus completing the circle.

Looking at the most recent set of data from the Land Registry for Haywards Heath (the RH16 postcode in particular); the figures show the indifferent nature of the current Haywards Heath property market.

Only 368 Haywards Heath (RH16) Homes changed hands in the last 6 months.

Haywards Heath property values and transactions continue to be sluggish, and the monthly peaks and troughs of house prices and properties changing hands doesn’t mask the deficiency of suitable realistically priced property coming onto the Haywards Heath property market, meaning the housing market is slowly becoming inaccessible to some would-be home owners.

Looking at what each property type is selling for in RH16 (note the data from the Land Registry is always 4/5 months behind) makes interesting reading.

One must remember these are the average prices paid, so it only takes a run of a few expensive or cheaper property types (as can be seen with the variance in the Apartments and Terraced in the table) to affect the figures.

Looking at the numbers of properties for sale I looked at my research for early summer 2008, and at that time 617 properties were on the market for sale in Haywards Heath. When I did my research on this article today there are just 446 properties for sale, a drop of 28%.

The Government needs to seriously consider the supply and demand of the UK property market as a whole to ensure it doesn’t seize up. It needs to do that with bold and forward-thinking plans but, in the meantime, people still need a roof over their head, so as local authorities don’t have the cash to build new houses anymore; it’s the job of Haywards Heath landlords to take up the slack.

I must stress though, I have noticed a distinct ‘flight to quality’ by Mid Sussex tenants, who are prepared to pay top dollar for an exceptional home to rent.  If you want to know what tenants are looking for and what type of things you as a Mid Sussex landlord need to do to maximise your rental returns – drop me a line.

More Than Three Babies Born for Every New Home Built in the Past Five Years in Mid Sussex.

More than 3 babies have been born for every new home that has been built in Mid Sussex since 2012, deepening the Mid Sussex housing shortage.

This discovery is an important foundation for my concerns about the future of the Mid Sussex property market - when you consider the battle that today’s twenty and thirty somethings face in order to buy their first home and get on the Mid Sussex property ladder. This is particularly ironic as these Mid Sussex youngsters’ are being born in an age when the number of new babies born to new homes was far lower.

This will mean the babies being born now, who will become the next generation’s first-time buyers will come up against even bigger competition from a greater number of their peers unless we move to long term fixes to the housing market, instead of the short term fixes that successive Governments have done since the 1980’s.

Looking at the most up to date data for the area covered by Mid Sussex Council, the numbers of properties-built versus the number of babies born together with the corresponding ratio of the two metrics:

It can be seen that in 2016, 1.96 babies had been born in Mid Sussex for every home that had been built in the five years to the end of 2016 (the most up to date data). Interestingly, that ratio nationally was 2.9 babies to every home built in the ‘50s and 2.4 in the ‘70s. I have seen the unaudited 2017 statistics and the picture isn’t any better

Our children, and their children, will be placed in an unprecedented and unbelievably difficult position when wanting to buy their first home unless decisive action is taken. You see it doesn’t help that with life expectancy growing year on year, this too is also placing excessive pressure on homes to live in availability, with normal population growth nationally (the number of babies born less the number of people passing away) accumulative by two people for every one home that was built since the start of this decade.

Owning one’s home is a measure many Brits to aspire to. The only long-term measure that will help is the building of more new homes on a scale not seen since the 50’s and 60’s, which means we would need to aim to at least double the number of homes we build annually.

In the meantime, what does this mean for Mid Sussex landlords and homeowners? Well the demand for rental properties in Mid Sussex in the short term will remain high and until the rate of building grows substantially, this means rents will remain strong and correspondingly, property values will remain robust.

Extra Funding Is Required for Affordable Homes in Mid Sussex.

In my blog about the Mid Sussex Property Market I mostly only talk about two of the three main sectors of the local property market, the ‘private rented sector’ and the ‘owner occupier sector’. However, as I often stress when talking to my clients, one cannot forget the third sector, that being the ‘social housing sector’ (or council housing as some people call it).

In previous articles, I have spoken at length about the crisis in supply of property in Mid Sussex (i.e. not enough property is being built), but in this article I want to talk about the other crisis – that of affordability. It is not just about the pure number of houses being built but also the equilibrium of tenure (ownership vs rented) and therein, the affordability of housing, which needs to be considered carefully for an efficient and effectual housing market.

An efficient and effectual housing market is in everyone’s interests, including Mid Sussex homeowners and Mid Sussex landlords, so let me explain:

An average of only 133 Affordable Homes per year have been built by Mid Sussex District Council in the last 9 years

The requirement for the provision of subsidised housing has been recognised since Victorian times. Even though private rents have not kept up with inflation since 2005 (meaning tenants are better off) it’s still a fact there are substantial numbers of low-income households in Mid Sussex devoid of the money to allow them a decent standard of housing.

Usually, property in the social housing sector has had rents set at around half the going market rate and affordable shared home ownership has been the main source of new affordable housing yet, irrespective of the tenure, the local authority is simply not coming up with the numbers required. If the local authority isn’t building or finding these affordable homes, these Mid Sussex tenants still need housing, and some tenants at the lower end of the market are falling foul of rogue landlords. Not good news for tenants and the vast majority of law abiding and decent Mid Sussex landlords who are tarnished by the actions of those few rogue landlords, especially as I believe everyone has the right to a safe and decent home.

Be it Tory’s, Labour, SNP, Lib Dems, Greens etc. everyone needs to put party politics aside and start building enough homes and ensure that housing is affordable. Even though 2017 was one of the best years for new home building in the last decade (217,000 home built in 2017) overall new home building has been in decline for many years from the heady days of the early 1970s, when an average of 350,000 new homes were being built a year.  As you can see from the graph, we simply aren’t building enough ‘affordable’ homes in the area.

The blame cannot all be placed at the feet of the local authority as Council budgets nationally, according to Full-Fact, are 26% lower than they have been since 2010. 

So, what does this mean for Mid Sussex homeowners? Well, an under supply of affordable homes will artificially keep rents and property prices high. That might sound good in the short term, but a large proportion of my Mid Sussex landlords find their children are also priced out of the housing market. Also, whilst your Mid Sussex home might be slightly higher in value, due to this lack of supply of homes at the bottom end of the market, as most people move up the market when they do move, the one you want to buy will be priced even higher.

Problems at the lower end of the property market will affect the middle and upper parts. There is no getting away from the fact that the Mid Sussex housing market is all interlinked it’s not called the Property ‘Ladder’ for nothing!