Easy problems should have easy solutions - shouldn’t they?
Problems like Royal Tunbridge Wells’s housing crisis, where we have a rudimentary
numerical problem of too few homes for too many people ...the answer is clearly
to build more property in Royal Tunbridge Wells - but that, unfortunately for
those desperately seeking to purchase or let a property, takes a lot of time
and huge amounts of money. So what of other solutions?
Whilst at a dinner with friends recently, the subject of
property was mentioned (as I am sure it does at most dinner parties up and down
the country). Normally someone always mentions empty properties as the solution
to the problem. On the face of it, it seems so obvious. Now quite
interestingly, I had recently done some research on this topic, which I want to
share with you (as I did with those at the dinner table).
The most recent set of figures from 2015 state there are 1,025 empty
homes in the Tunbridge Wells Borough Council area. So it begs the question ... why
not put them back onto the system and help ease the Royal Tunbridge Wells
housing crisis? Whilst they stand empty, 1,103 Tunbridge Wells households (not
people – households) are on the Council House Waiting List for council houses. Surely, we can undoubtedly all agree that property left empty for years and
years isn’t morally right with the burgeoning Council House Waiting List, not
to also mention the issue of homelessness.
But a different story emerges when you look deeper into the
numbers. Of those 1,025 homes lying empty, only 276 properties were empty for
more than six months. The local authority has to report a property being empty,
even if it’s for a week. So many of the Royal Tunbridge Wells properties are
either awaiting new homeowners or, in the case of rental properties, new tenants.
Also most certainly, some properties are being refurbished and renovated, while
others properties have homeowners who are anxious to sell but cannot find a
buyer.
And this is where its gets even more interesting. Of the 276
long-term vacant properties (those empty more than six months), only 2 belong
to the council, whereas in most other areas that number is considerably higher.
However, anecdotal evidence suggests these empty council houses are habitually
in need of so much restoration anyway that it’s not worth the Council’s while
to do and are in the roughest parts of the council estates, they are properties
that even the Council find difficult to fill.
The fact is that the number of genuinely long term empty properties
is only a tiny drop in the ocean of the 47,174 properties in the area covered
by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and, even if every one of those empty homes
were filled with happy cheerful tenants tomorrow, it would only meet a small
fraction of Royal Tunbridge Wells housing needs.
So what does this mean for all the homeowners and landlords of Royal
Tunbridge Wells? Well it means with demand being so high, especially for rental
properties, the certainty of the rental market growing is an inevitability
because young people cannot buy and councils don’t have the money to build new council
houses. This in turn bolsters property prices as landlords continue to buy at
the lower end of the market (starter homes, etc), which in turn sustains the
rest of the market as those sellers move up the property ladder, releasing
others in turn to buy on again.
These are interesting times in the Royal Tunbridge Wells
property market!
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