Great(er) Expectations: Why Royal Tunbridge Wells Home Sellers are Having to Reduce Their Asking Prices by an Average of £21,600 Each

As we leave the memorably hot summer behind us, some interesting statistics have come to light on the Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market which will be thought provoking for both homeowners and buy to let landlords alike.

Over the last 12 months 1,007 households have changed hands in Royal Tunbridge Wells, interesting when compared with the 10-year average of 1,352 households per year.

Yet, for the purpose of this week’s article, I want to discuss the pricing of the current crop of Royal Tunbridge Wells’ property sellers and the prices they are asking for their homes and the prices they are achieving (or not as at the case may be). It is so important for all property owners to know the real story, so they can judge for themselves where they stand in the current Royal Tunbridge Wells housing market, thus enabling them to make suitable and informed decisions… and that is why, in my blog about the Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market, I pride myself in telling the people of Royal Tunbridge Wells the real answers, not just the ones they want to hear.

The national average of homes selling at or above the asking price currently stands at around 10%, so around 90% go below the asking price – but by how much? Well according to Rightmove, in the Royal Tunbridge Wells area, the average difference between the ‘FINAL asking price’ to the price agreed is 3.1% … yet note I highlighted the word FINAL in the last statement. 

You see some Estate Agents will deliberately over inflate the suggested initial asking price to the house seller, because it gives them a greater chance to secure the property on that agent’s books, as opposed to a competitor. This practice is called overvaluing. Now of course, each homeowner wants to get the most for their property, it is quite often their biggest asset – yet some agents know this and prey on those house sellers. You might ask, what is the issue with that?

Well, you only get one chance of hitting the market as a new property. Everyone has access to the internet, Rightmove and Zoopla etc, and your potential buyers will know the market like the back of their hand. If you have a 3 bed semi that is on the market for a 3 bed detached house price.. those buyers will ignore you. Your Royal Tunbridge Wells property sticks on the market, potential buyers will keep seeing your Royal Tunbridge Wells property on Rightmove each week, then start to think there is something wrong with it, dismiss it even further, until you, as the house seller have to reduce the asking price so much (to make it appear inexpensive) to get it away. According to our own research, the average house buyer only views between 4 and 5 houses before buying – so don’t assume viewers will come round your optimistically priced (i.e. overvalued) property, thinking they will knock you down – no quite the opposite!

So how widespread is overvaluing in Royal Tunbridge Wells? The results might surprise you…

43.4% of properties in Royal Tunbridge Wells, currently on the market, have reduced their asking price by an average reduction of 5.0% (which equates to £21,600 each)

So, all I ask is this.. be realistic and you will sell at a decent price to a decent buyer. First time – every time – enabling you to move on to the next chapter of your life.

7 Reasons Why Royal Tunbridge Wells Buy To Let Landlords Shouldn’t Be Criticised

There is no escaping the fact that over the last couple of decades, the rise in the number buy to let properties in Royal Tunbridge Wells has been nothing short of extraordinary.  Many in the “left leaning” press have spoken of a broken nation, the fact many youngsters are unable to buy their first home with the rise of a new cohort of younger renters, whom have been daubed ‘Generation Rent’ as landlords hoover up all the properties for their buy to let property empires. Government has been blamed in the past for giving landlords an unfair advantage with the tax system. It is also true many of my fellow professionals have done nothing to avail themselves in glory, with some suspect, if not on some rare occasions, downright dubious practices. 

Yet has the denigration and unfair criticism of some Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords gone too far? 

It was only a few weeks ago, I read an article in a newspaper of one landlord who had decided to sell their modest buy to let portfolio for a combination of reasons, one of which being the new tax rules on buy to let that were introduced last year. The comments section of the newspaper and the associated social media posts were pure hate, and certainly not deserved.

Like all aspects in life, there are always good (and bad) landlords, just like there are good (and bad) letting agents ... and so it should be said, there are good tenants and in equal measure bad tenants. Bad letting agents and bad landlords should be routed out … but not at the expense of the vast majority whom are good and decent.

But are the 2,093 Royal Tunbridge Wells portfolio buy to let landlords at fault?

The Tories allowed people to buy their own Council house in the 1980’s, taking them out of the collective pot of social rented houses for future generations to rent them. Landlords have been vilified by many, as it has been suggested by some they have an unhealthy and ravenous avarice to make cash and profit at the expense of poor renters, unable to buy their first home. Yet, looking beyond the headline grabbing press, this is in fact ‘fake news’. There are seven reasons that have created the perfect storm for private renting to explode in the 2000’s.

To start with, the Housing Acts of 1988 and 1996 gave buy to let landlords the right to remove tenants after six months, without the need for fault. The 1996 Act, and its changes, meant banks and building societies could start to lend on buy to let properties, knowing if the mortgage payments weren’t kept up to date, the property could be repossessed without the issue of sitting tenants being in the property for many years (even decades!) ... meaning in 1997, buy to let mortgages were born… and this, my blog reading friends, is where the problem started. 

Secondly, in the early 2000’s, those same building societies and banks were relaxing their lending criteria, with self-certification (i.e. you did not need to prove your income), mortgages 8 times their annual salary, and very helpful interest only mortgage deals helped to keep repayments inexpensive. 

Thirdly, the totally inadequate building of Council Houses (aka Local Authority Housing) in the last two decades and(so I’m not accused of Tory bashing) - can you believe Labour only built 6,510 Council Houses in the WHOLE OF THE UK between 1997 and 2010? Giving the Tories their due, they have built 20,840 Council Houses since they came to power in 2010 (although still woefully low when compared the number of Council Houses built in the 1960’s and 1970’s when we were building on average 142,000 Council Houses per year nationally). This meant people who would have normally rented from the Council, had no Council House to rent (because they had been bought), so they rented privately.

And then 3^rd, 4^th, 5^th, 6^thand 7^th…  

·     Less of private home building (again look at the graph) over the last two decades.

·     A loss of conviction in personal pensions meaning people were looking for a better place to invest their savings for retirement.

·     Ultra-low interest rates for the last nine years since the Credit Crunch meaning borrowing was cheap.

·     A massive increase in EU migration from 2004, when we had eight Eastern European countries join the EU. That brought 1.4m people to the UK for work from those countries – and they needed somewhere to live.

Thus, we got the perfect storm conditions for an eruption in the Royal Tunbridge Wells Private Rented Sector.

Commercially speaking, purchasing a Royal Tunbridge Wells property has been undoubtedly the best thing anyone could have done with their hard-earned savings since 1998, where property values in Royal Tunbridge Wells have risen by 301.92%...

…and basing it on the average rental in Royal Tunbridge Wells, earned £232,416 in rent.

Yet, the younger generation have lost out, as they are now incapable to get on the property (especially in Central London). 

The Government have over the last few years started to redress the imbalance, increasing taxes for landlords, together with the Banks being tighter on their lending criteria meaning the heady days of the Noughties are long gone for Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords. In the past 20 years, anything but everything made money in property and it was easy as falling off a log to make money in buy to let in Royal Tunbridge Wells – but not anymore.

Being a letting agent has evolved from being a glorified rent collector to a trusted advisor giving specific portfolio strategy planning on each landlord’s buy to let portfolios. I had a couple of instances recently of a couple of portfolio landlords, one from Frant who wanted income in retirement from his buy to let’s and the other from Fordcombe, who wanted to pass on a decent chunk of cash to his grandchildren to enable them to buy their own home in 15/20 years’ time. 

Both of these landlord’s portfolios were woefully going to miss the targets and expectations both landlords had with their portfolios, so over the last six/nine months, we have sold a few of their properties, refinanced and purchased other types of Royal Tunbridge Wells property to enable them to hit their future goals (because some properties in Royal Tunbridge Wells are better for income and some are better for capital growth) ... And that my blog reading friends is what  ‘portfolio strategy planning’ is!  

If you think you need ‘portfolio strategy planning’, whether you are a landlord of ours or not (because the Fordcombe landlord wasn’t)  ... drop me line or give the office a call. Thank you for reading.

5.5% Drop in the Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market

The number of residential property transactions in Tunbridge Wells will be 5.5 per cent lower in 2018, compared to 2017.

According to my research, the seasonally adjusted statistics for our local authority area suggest with the number of properties already sold in 2018, and the number of properties currently under offer or sold subject to contract (allowing for property sales to fall through before exchange of contracts) we, as an area, will end the year 5.54 per cent lower compared to 2017.

So why are transaction numbers so important to Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners, Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords and potential first-time buyers?

Many economists and property market commentators believe transaction numbers give a more precise and truthful indicator of the health of the property market than just house values. In the six years before the Credit Crunch in 2007/8, the average number of completed property transactions in the local area (the local authority covered by Tunbridge Wells) stood at 2,544 per year .. yet in the three years following the Credit Crunch, on average, only 1,607 homes were changing hands per year in the area.

Roll the clock forward to more recent times and last year, in 2017, 1,847 homes changed hands (i.e. transacted and sold) in the area, not far off the local authority’s 23 year overall average of 2,155 homes per year. 

In the past, a reduction in the number of properties selling has often been believed to be the first signal of a down turn in the housing market as a whole. Although, the down turn of the credit crunch years (2007/2008) was more a free-fall than a subtle down turn. Look at the graph and the ‘so-called’ halcyon days of the 2000 to 2006 property market were a roller coaster when it came to the number of transactions. House prices were rising in the six/seven years before the credit crunch (2000 to 2006), albeit, the rate of growth of Royal Tunbridge Wells house prices did slow in late 2005 and 2006 (which does fit in nicely with the graph).

In other articles, I have mentioned the change in the number of houses for sale today compared to last year and further back. Although, the market has seen in recent months (i.e. the short term) an increase in the number of properties for sale, fundamentally, in the medium term, there has been an underlying trend in the reduction of properties coming onto the market for sale in Royal Tunbridge Wells (and nationally) and this has been one of the main drives behind the lack of properties selling .. Royal Tunbridge Wells people aren’t moving as much as they were 30 years ago meaning fewer houses are selling each year.

However, this short-term increase in properties for sale hasn’t been even across the board. In certain sectors of the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market, there is a glut of properties on the market at the moment and so prices and values are dropping on those types as sellers compete for the limited amount of buyers… yet, there are other sectors of the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market where there is a dearth, a shortage of property, and buyers are fighting tooth and nail with silly offers to try and secure the sale. This means, there are some bargains for you Royal Tunbridge Wells buy to let landlords. If you look hard enough, you could spot the same trends I have seen in Royal Tunbridge Wells and find the individual property micro markets that fall into that first sector (with its glut). 

So, if you want the inside track on the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market, whether you are a landlord of ours or another agent, I am more than happy to guide you in the right direction if you drop me a line or an email (contacts details are easily found on this page – and I don’t bite or do hard sell – promise!).

So, to conclude, I believe we will finish on 1,745 housing transactions by the end of the year in the area .. not too far off last year’s figure or the long-term 23-year average. Looking at the short term future, now it’s true some (not all) but some potential purchasers of property in Royal Tunbridge Wells may be exhibiting more caution because of concerns that the Bank of England will continue to put up interest rates– to which I reply – yes of course they will when they are only ultra-low at 0.75%. Anyway, that is the reason why 90%+ of new mortgages over the last nine months have been on a fixed rate. Also, if they do go up a few percentage points – they are nothing compared to the 12%, 14%, even 15% mortgage rates many of my landlords saw in the early 1990’s. 

We can all speculate (and I appreciate the irony of that as I write this article) but all I say to any Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords, Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners or Royal Tunbridge Wells first time buyers is act according to your own life cycle, budget on a modest increase in interest rates in the coming few years (yet protect yourself by fixing it), consider your own circumstances and finally, what you can afford.

55 Days to Sell a Property in Royal Tunbridge Wells

Whether you are a Royal Tunbridge Wells landlord looking to liquidate your buy to let investment or a homeowner looking to sell your home, finding a buyer and selling your property can take an annoyingly long time. It is a step-by-step process that can take months and months. In fact, one of the worst parts of the house selling process is the not knowing how long you might be stuck at each step. At the moment, looking at every estate agent in Royal Tunbridge Wells, independent research shows it is taking on average 55 days from the property coming on the market for it to be sold subject to contract.

But trust me ... that is just the start of a long journey on the house selling/buying process. The journey is a long one and therefore, in this article, I want to take you through the standard itinerary for each step of the house selling procedure in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Step 1 – Find a Buyer

You need to instruct an estate agent (of course we can help you with that) who will talk through a marketing strategy and pricing strategy to enable you to find a buyer that fits your circumstances. 55 days might be the average in Royal Tunbridge Wells, yet as I have said many times, the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market is like a fly’s eye, split up into lots of little micro markets.

Looking at that independent research, (which only focused on Royal Tunbridge Wells), it was interesting to see how the different price bands (i.e. different micro markets) are currently performing, when it comes down to the average number of days it takes to find a buyer for a property in Royal Tunbridge Wells. 

Asking Price (Royal Tunbridge Wells)	Average Time to Find a Buyer in Royal Tunbridge Wells (days)
Under £100,000	51
£100,000 to £200,000	59
£200,000 to £300,000	56
£300,000 to £400,000	48
£400,000 to £500,000	50
£500,000 to £1,000,000	50
Over £1,000,000	74

Interestingly, I thought I would see which price band had the highest proportion of properties sold (stc)... again – fascinating! 

So, now you have a buyer ... what next?

There are a variety of distinctive issues at play when selling your property in Royal Tunbridge Wells, together with the involvement of a wide and varied range of professionals who get involved in that process. That means there is are enormous differences in how long it takes from one property to another. Moving forward to the next steps, these are the average lengths of time it takes for each step to give you some idea of what to expect. 

Step 2  - Sort Solicitors (and Mortgage)

Again, something we can point you in the right direction to, but it will take a good few weeks for your buyer to apply and sort their mortgage and for your solicitors to prepare the legal paper work to send to the buyer.

Step 3 – Legal Work and Survey

Once you buyer’s solicitor receives the paperwork from your solicitor, then your buyer’s solicitor applies for local searches from the local authority (to ensure no motorways etc., are going to be built in the back garden!).  These Searches can take a number of weeks to be returned to the buyer solicitors from the council, from which questions will be raised by the buyer’s solicitor to your solicitor (trust me – you don’t see a tenth of the work that goes on behind closed doors to get the sale through to completion). Meanwhile, the surveyor will check the property to ensure it is worth the money and structurally sound. Overall, this step can take between 3 and 6 weeks (sometimes more!).

Step 4 – Exchange of Contracts

Assuming all the mortgage, survey and legal work comes back ok, both the buyer and solicitor sign contracts, the solicitors then perform “Exchange of Contracts”. When contracts are exchanged, this is the first time both buyer and seller are tied in. Before then, they can walk away ... and you are probably 4 or 5 months down the line from having put up the for sale board – this isn’t a quick process! BUT hold on ... we aren’t there yet!

Step 5 – Completion

Between a week and up to six weeks after exchange of contracts, the buyer solicitor sends the purchase money to the seller’s solicitor, and once that arrives, the keys will be given to the buyer … phew!

To conclude, all in all, you are looking at a good four, five even six months from putting the for-sale board up to moving out. 

If you are thinking of selling your Royal Tunbridge Wells home or if you are a Royal Tunbridge Wells landlord, hoping to sell your buy to let property (with tenants in), either way, if you want a chat to ensure you get a decent price with minimal fuss ... drop me a message or pick up the phone.

Value of Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market rises £234.8m

The combined value of Royal Tunbridge Wells’ housing market has risen by £234,799,821 in the last 6 months, meaning the average value of a Royal Tunbridge Wells property has increased in value by an average of £14,733.   

This is great news for Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners and Royal Tunbridge Wells buy to let landlords, as property prices have risen despite a slight hesitation in the market because of the uncertainty over Brexit. As I have always said, investing in Royal Tunbridge Wells property, be it for you to live in or as a buy to let investment, is a long-term game. 

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 Royal Tunbridge Wells, 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) Royal Tunbridge Wells 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). Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Values though … 

The fact is that over the last 6 months 369 properties have sold for a combined value of £168,844,437 months ago, the total value of Royal Tunbridge Wells property stood at £7,710,734,962 (£7.71bn) ,and today it stands at £7,945,534,783 (£7.95bn).

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 Julyshowed nationally the number of new homes started to be built over the second Quarter of 2018 had droppeddramatically)makes me think that Royal Tunbridge Wells (and Nationally) property value is likely to maintain an upward trajectory as we go into 2019.

Two final thoughts, firstly for all the buy to let landlords in Royal Tunbridge Wells (and indirectly this does affect all you Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells tenants that don’t become first time buyers, as the appeal of buy to let potentially weakens. Secondly, even though values have increased, realistic pricing (i.e. the asking price) is still the key to achieving these figures… so if you are considering selling in the next 6 months – please bear that in mind.

Royal Tunbridge Wells Property Market – How Does It Compare Historically to the South East and National Property Market’s?

Living in our own homes or owning buy to let property in Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells, consideration must be given to these markets, as directly and indirectly, they do have a bearing on us in Royal Tunbridge Wells. 

Locally, the value of property in Royal Tunbridge Wells 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, Royal Tunbridge Wells’ landlords and Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners might be interested in the how the regional and Royal Tunbridge Wells markets have performed over the last 20 years (compared to the National picture). Let’s look at the regional picture first, 

Tunbridge Wells has outperformed the South East housing market by 3.2%...

...whilst nationally, Tunbridge Wells has outperformed the country by 21.12%

That means a Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowner has profited by an additional £105,309 over the last 20 years compared to the average homeowners across the country.

I found it interesting to see the ups and downs of the Royal Tunbridge Wells, South East and National markets in this graph. How the lines of graphs roughly go in the same direction, with Royal Tunbridge Wells following the regional trend more closely than the national trend (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 Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners and Royal Tunbridge Wells 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 Royal Tunbridge Wells are 314.93% 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!

How Would a Hard Brexit Affect Royal Tunbridge Wells House Prices?

I have been asked a number of times recently what a hard Brexit would mean to the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market. To be frank, I have been holding off giving my thoughts, as I did not want to add fuel to the stories being banded around in the national press. However, it’s obviously a topic that you as Royal Tunbridge Wells buy to let landlords and Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners are interested in ... so I am going to try and give you what I consider a fair and unbiased piece on what would happen if a hard Brexit takes place in March 2019.

After the weather and football, the British obsession on the UK property market is without comparison to any other country in the world. I swear The Daily Mail has the state of the country’s property market on its standard weekly rotation of front-page stories! Like I have said before on my blog, there are better economic indexes and statistics to judge the economy (and more importantly) the property market. If you recall, I said the number of transactions was just as important, if not more, as a bellwether of the state of the property market.

Worries that the Brexit referendum would lead to a fast crash in Royal Tunbridge Wells’ (and national) property values were unfounded, although the growth of property values in Royal Tunbridge Wells has reduced since the referendum in the summer of 2016. 

Now, it’s true the Royal Tunbridge Wells property market is seeing less people sell and move and the property values are rising at a slower rate in 2018 compared to the heady days of the first half of this decade (2010 to 2015), but before we all start panicking, let’s ask ourselves, what exactly has happened in the last couple of years since the Brexit vote? 

Royal Tunbridge Wells’ house prices have risen by 7.21% since the EU Referendum...

...and yes, in 2018 we are on track (and again this is projected) to finish on 1,695 property transactions (i.e. the number of people selling their home) ... which is less than 2017 ... and only just below the long term 12 year average of 1,888 transactions in the local council area.

So, it appears the EU vote hasn’t caused many major issues so far, however, if there was a large economic jolt, that could be a different game, yet how likely is that? 

The property market is mostly influenced by interest rates and salaries.

A hard Brexit would subdue wage growth to some degree, yet the level of the change will depend on the undetermined type of Brexit deal (or no deal). If trade barriers are imposed on a hard Brexit, imports will become more expensive, inflation will rise and growth will fall, although at least we are not in the Euro, meaning this could be tempered by the exchange rate of the Pound against the Euro. In plain language, a hard Brexit will be worse for house prices than a deal.

So why did the Governor of the Bank of England suggest a disorderly hard Brexit would affect house prices by up to 35%?

I mean it was only nine years ago we went through the global financial crisis with the credit crunch. Nationally, in most locations including Royal Tunbridge Wells, property values dropped in value by 16% to 19% over an 18-month period. Look at the graph and if we had a similar percentage drop, it would only take us back to the property value levels we were achieving in 2015.

And let’s not forget that the Bank of England introduced some measures to ensure we didn’t have another bubble in any future property market. One of the biggest factors of the 2009 property crash was the level of irresponsible lending by the banks. The Bank of England Mortgage Market Review of 2014 forced Banks to lend on how much borrowers had left after regular expenditure, rather than on their income. Income multipliers that were 8 or 9 times income pre-credit crunch were significantly curtailed (meaning a Bank could only offer a small number of residential mortgages above 4.5 times income), and that Banks had to assess whether the borrower could afford the mortgage if interest rates at the time of lending rose by three percentage points over the first five years of the loan ... meaning all the major possible stumbling blocks have been mostly weeded out of the system. 

So, what next?

A lot of Royal Tunbridge Wells homeowners might wait until 2019 to move, meaning less choice for buyers, especially in the desirable areas of Royal Tunbridge Wells. For Royal Tunbridge Wells landlords, Royal Tunbridge Wells tenants are also likely to hang off moving until next year, although I suspect (as we had this on the run up to the 2015 General Election when it was thought Labour might get into Government), during the lull, there could be some Royal Tunbridge Wells buy to let bargains to be had from people having to move (Brexit or No Brexit) or the usual panic selling at times of uncertainty. 

Brexit, No Brexit, Hard Brexit … in the whole scheme of things, it will be another footnote to history in a decade. We have survived the Oil Crisis, 20%+ Hyperinflation in the 1970’s, Mass Unemployment in the 1980s, Interest Rates of 15% in 1990’s, the Global Financial Crash in 2009 ... whatever happens, happens. People still need houses and a roof over their head. If property values drop, it is only a paper drop in value ... because you lose when you actually sell. Long term, we aren’t building enough homes, and so, as I always say, property is a long game no matter what happens - the property market will always come good.

Growth in UK property values as well as in Royal Tunbridge Wells seems fated to slow over the next five to ten years, whatever sort of Brexit takes place.