50% of Royal Tunbridge Wells house sellers in 2022 had only been in their old home on average 5 years and 24 weeks

The share of Brits moving each year has been declining since the late 1980s (when at one stage, people moved every eight years), yet since the pandemic's beginning, something has appeared to upset that trend.

Newspaper stories and social media posts painted a picture of homeowners moving from the city centres to its suburbs, from the suburbs to the towns and countryside around the UK. Areas like the Cotswolds and coastal towns around the country got swamped by the race for space, significantly affecting housing markets (including Tunbridge Wells).

But how many Brits moved? And how long had they been in their homes before they moved?

In Great Britain, there are 28.3 million households, of which 19.3 million are owner-occupied and 4.43m owned by private buy-to-let landlords.

There is £7,035 trillion of residential property in private hands.

Eight years before the initial lockdown in 2020, an average of 79,646 properties were sold each month in the UK, meaning just under a million UK households move home annually.

Therefore, in those 8 years, the average British homeowner moved every 20 years and 4 months.

So, what uplift was there in people moving home after the first lockdown in 2020?

In 2021 and early 2022, an average of 102,021 people moved home monthly, taking the average move time to once every 16 years. So even though there was an uplift in people moving home, it was nothing like the 1980s.

It shows that in the 21 st Century, once you have succeeded in buying a property you can call home, there isn't much enthusiasm to move again.

What is happening in the Tunbridge Wells property market now?

We love our homes in Tunbridge Wells, but most of us (including myself) still want to better our lives with a larger house, better area etc., which typically requires us to climb up the Tunbridge Wells property ladder.

Yet, with Tunbridge Wells house prices having risen by 432.4% in the last 25 years, the cost of going up the next rung on the Tunbridge Wells property ladder has become prohibitive.

Everyone remembers back to the 1980s, when we had an upbeat booming property market as a backdrop, and British homeowners moved home every eight years; so now, with the average move time in the mid to late teens (in years), this equates to each homeowner only moving around three to four times in their adult lifetime.

Or could it be something else?

We all know the phrase, “lies, damn lies and statistics.

The home moving statistics above hide some great details about the British property market.

When British homeowners get into their 50s, 60s and beyond, their inclination to move home drops like the proverbial stone.

The average time a homeowner without a mortgage moves home is 24 years and 27 weeks (and just over 7 out of 10 outright homeowners, i.e. without a mortgage, are 65 or older).

Homeowners with a mortgage tend to be younger to middle-aged.

Homeowners with a mortgage move on average every 10 years and 11 weeks.

So, whilst I cannot determine which house seller has a mortgage and which doesn't, I can look at how quickly people move home in Tunbridge Wells.

Therefore, I have taken a look at the last 50 property sales in Tunbridge Wells and found some interesting results.

The average Tunbridge Wells homeowner had only been in
their home on average 13 years and 18 weeks before they sold.

Yet the devil is in the detail.

There appears to be a two-speed Tunbridge Wells property market …

50% of Tunbridge Wells house sellers in 2022 had
only been in their old home on average 5 years and 24 weeks.

Then, let's split the findings into quarters.

• Top 25% fastest Tunbridge Wells homeowners in 2022 moved on average after 3 years & 26 weeks
• The following 25% of fastest Tunbridge Wells homeowners in 2022 moved on average after 7 years & 16 weeks
• The next 25% of Tunbridge Wells homeowners in 2022 moved on average after 16 years & 0 weeks
• Whilst the 25% slowest Tunbridge Wells homeowners in 2022 moved on average after 26 years & 3 weeks

When looking at the properties that fall into the slower time bands (i.e., the ones that don’t move/sell so often), they tend to be the larger properties where the homeowners have lived often for 30 or 40 years.

Maybe, the one lesson from these statistics is that once homeowners get into their 60’s and 70’s, their tendency and inclination to move home declines significantly.

This means the homes on the lower rungs of the Tunbridge Wells property ladder are selling

quickly (as younger aged homeowners occupy them) ... yet once Tunbridge Wells people

tend to get older, their tendency to move diminishes.

This obstructs the younger generation of Tunbridge Wells homeowners from wanting to buy

the bigger Tunbridge Wells properties these mature Tunbridge Wells homeowners live in.

What is holding the older generation back from selling and downsizing to free up family

homes for families that desperately need them? Some will be apathy, and some will be

wanting to hold on to the homes they brought their families up in, yet the bottom line is …

as a country, we must reconsider how we can encourage (not force) older homeowners to sell their large homes to release them to the younger families that desperately need them.

Some recent articles I have written suggested tax breaks, yet the government doesn't have the money to give massive tax breaks.

One thing I do know we, as a country, have seen (and will continue to see) a lot of demographic change together with an increasingly ageing population, so it’s not just about how many households we build but whether we are constructing the right kind of homes for the older generation?

Thought-provoking times are ahead for the Tunbridge Wells property market!

If you have a Tunbridge Wells property to sell in the coming months or years and want to know how this and other factors will affect you and your property ... without obligation, don't hesitate to call me.

​Royal Tunbridge Wells’ Millennials to Inherit £4.2bn From Their Baby Boomer Parents

The total value of homes owned by Baby Boomers in Tunbridge Wells alone is £4,245,254,994 - and two-thirds of the Tunbridge Wells Millennials are set to inherit all that in the next few decades!

Could this be the answer to the housing crisis?

Could Tunbridge Wells Millennials live it up for the next few decades, safe in the knowledge they will get a huge lump sum to pay off their debts and buy a house with what is left?

Before I look at that, which set of people in Tunbridge Wells exactly are the Tunbridge Wells Millennials or Tunbridge Wells Baby Boomers?

Come to that, who are Generation Z, the Silent Generation or Generation X?

All these are phrases used for the different groups of people in their various life stages of our society. 

So, splitting the groups down:

👉🏻Silent Generation: Born 1945 and before (77 years old and above)

👉🏻Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964 (58 years old to 76 years old)

👉🏻Generation X: Born 1965 to 1980 (42 years old to 55 years old)

👉🏻Millennials: Born 1981 to 1995 (27 years old to 41 years old) 

👉🏻Generation Z: Born after 1996 (everyone under 26 years old)

Using data from the Census, my research shows there are …

7,446 households in Tunbridge Wells owned by Tunbridge Wells Baby Boomers and they are worth a combined value of £4,245,254,994.

The generation that will inherit those Tunbridge Wells properties will be the millennials. 

There are 7,477 millennials in Tunbridge Wells.

After looking at the local demographics, homeownership statistics and current life expectancy, around two-thirds of those Tunbridge Wells Millennials have parents who own those 7,446 Tunbridge Wells properties, meaning each is in line for an inheritance of £851,237.15.

Now that figure is just a simple average and a lot more than the value of many properties in Tunbridge Wells. A lot of that is to do the low number of millennials in Tunbridge Wells (as a proportion of the overall population) and the high number of baby boomers compared to the national average. The inheritance figure is just to show the extent of the money tied up in Tunbridge Wells property and what that could do for the younger generation. 

Yet what about Tunbridge Wells’ Silent Generation?

There are 6,779 homes in Tunbridge Wells owned by the ‘Silent Generation’, and they are worth £3,864,972,281.

The issue for those who will inherit their parents’ homes is that there are far more Generation X people in Tunbridge Wells than millennials.

Two-thirds of the 12,597 Tunbridge Wells Generation X will inherit £430,684.61 - still nothing to sniff at yet not as much as the millennials!

So, whilst the Tunbridge Wells Millennials are less likely to own their own home compared to Generation X and so have done not as well in amassing their assets and savings, they are more likely to benefit from an inheritance boom in the years to come. 

This is likely to be very comforting information for those Tunbridge Wells Millennials, including some from humbler upbringings who historically would have been unlikely to receive an inheritance. 

Nevertheless, inheritance is not the silver bullet that will get the millennials onto the Tunbridge Wells housing ladder.

Nor will it deal with the increasing wealth inequalities in British society, as the inheritance they are likely to receive won’t be accessible when they are trying to buy their first Tunbridge Wells home.

So, before all you Tunbridge Wells Millennials start running up your credit card bills, safe in the knowledge they will be paid for when your parents pass away in 20/30 years, over half of the females and around a third of men are going to have to pay for their nursing home fees. 

Remarkably, I recently read 25% of people who must pay for their nursing home fees run out of money, and therefore have to rely on funding from the local authority.

Therefore, if you are a Tunbridge Wells Millennial, no inheritance will be left for you. It goes without saying, most Tunbridge Wells parents want to give some inheritance to their children.  

Yet if waiting until you pass away to help your children or even grandchildren with your legacy could be seen as too late, so what are the options?

One solution to help and fix the housing crisis in Tunbridge Wells (and the UK as a whole) is if parents and grandparents, where they can, help financially with the deposit for a house whilst their children/grandchildren are in, say, their 20's and early 30's. 

Buying a Tunbridge Wells property is much cheaper than renting – I have shown it many times in these articles. 

It’s not a case of not being able to afford the mortgage; the problem is raising the mortgage deposit (of 5% to 10%) for these Tunbridge Wells Millennials.

Maybe families should be discussing the distribution of family wealth whilst everyone is alive (in the form of helping the family with house deposits) as opposed to waiting until the end, as it will make a massive difference to everyone in the short and long run. 

And a final thought, your legacy will have a more significant impact, and you will be here to see it with your own eyes.

A win-win for everyone.

Why Does it Take 112 Days to Get the Keys When You Buy a Royal Tunbridge Wells House?

• 1,105 properties have sold in the Royal Tunbridge Wells area in the last 12 months.

• It only takes 63 days to sell a Royal Tunbridge Wells home, so why does it take 112 days from the sold board going up to the buyer getting the keys?

• With a shortage of solicitors and a sub-standard conveyancing system, this article discusses what Royal Tunbridge Wells house sellers (and buyers) can do to speed up the house buying process.

Nationally, the average length of time it takes from agreeing the sale of a property to the keys being handed over is 111 days (down from 117 days last year), and in Royal Tunbridge Wells we come in at 112 days – pretty much on par with that national average.

So why does it take 16 weeks, when all that is required is the lawyers to look at some paperwork and get a mortgage? Also, what can Royal Tunbridge Wells homebuyers and sellers do to speed this up?  

The legal process to buy and sell a UK property is called conveyancing. The conveyancing system itself hasn’t really changed in hundreds of years. After the housing market was reopened after the first lockdown in the spring of 2020, the property market returned with a bang, helped on with the stamp duty holiday. 

In 2021, the number of properties selling in Royal Tunbridge Wells in some months went up massively, e.g., by 96% June 2021 and by 65% in March 2021. Many conveyancers and solicitors had to sort the legal paperwork out for upwards of 120 to 150 properties each at any one time.

This glut of sold properties caused by the pandemic that needed legal work to be sorted exacerbated a problem already present in the conveyancing industry.

For years conveyancers have complained of overwork and underpay. Conveyancing is seen as the Cinderella of the legal profession. This workload was the straw that broke the camel’s back, making many conveyancers leave the profession and go into better paid legal work like corporate work.

Also, the legal process of conveyancing has built-in inefficiencies, and the conveyancing profession has been relatively slow to innovate. However, there are some excellent tech solutions that are being slowly rolled out across the industry to make the process more efficient and effective. 

What can Royal Tunbridge Wells home buyers and sellers do to speed up their property sale?

If you are buying or selling your Royal Tunbridge Wells property as we speak, you won’t be able to wait for the conveyancing profession to be revamped, yet you can be as pre-emptive as possible to get your Royal Tunbridge Wells house sale through earlier. 

In a nutshell, ensure you have all the paperwork sorted on your Royal Tunbridge Wells home before you put your home on the market. Next, get the ball rolling on your mortgage. If you receive some paperwork, read it, check it, sign it and send it back in a day, do not leave it a week; finally, always communicate frequently with your estate agent and conveyancer.

When you instruct a solicitor, most will request money to start the ball rolling for searches and disbursements. They won’t lift a finger until that is paid. 

You will have to prove who you are in the conveyancing process, so your conveyancer will ask you to show them proof of ID and address. If you are buying, they will need to prove you have the funds/deposit to buy the home (and if your deposit is coming from family/friends, then they are required to write a letter to that effect).

How can the house buying and selling process be improved?

A couple of years ago, the Government set up the Home Buying and Selling Group to find the answer to this problem. Chaired by the well-known property guru Kate Faulkner, it is looking at an amalgamated Seller’s Information Pack (SIPs) and an IT-based single platform to share and communicate that SIP between buyers, sellers, their conveyancers, the estate agent, mortgage providers and brokers and finally surveyors.

The advantage of the SIP is that it can be created before the buyer has been found, meaning property buyers would be more knowledgeable when making an offer. Also, once the sale has been agreed upon, the SIP could be sent straightaway electronically to the buyers’ legal team (from the seller’s legal team) to start the procedure of asking for searches and raising inquiries. 

The bottom line is the conveyancing process is not fit for purpose in the 21^st century and change is on the horizon.

So, before the SIP becomes mandatory, there are things everyone can do to ensure they get the home of their dreams quicker. 

At my agency, I recommend the seller, us as the agent and the conveyancer start to liaise with each other to get the key information on the property being sold as quickly as possible. Then once a buyer is found, I believe it is vital we, as the agent, regularly communicate with all the stakeholders in the chain to ensure everyone is playing their part to expedite the sale. 

In the future, utilising technology and every agent/conveyancer preparing information upfront with the SIP will drastically reduce the time it takes between agreeing a sale and the keys/monies handed over. 

The conveyancing process will have to change to meet the needs of the 21^st century, but how long that will take is the big question.

If you would like to chat with me about how we do things differently to ensure your property not only gets the best price and how we do all we can, as agents, to expedite a smooth sale for your Royal Tunbridge Wells property, do not hesitate to pick up the phone to me or drop me a line at the office.