The Clapham Property Blog

It’s been nearly 18 months since Sajid Javid, the Tory Government’s Housing Minister published the White Paper “Fixing the Broken UK Housing Market”, meanwhile Clapham property values continue to rise at 0.2% (year on year for the council area) and the number of new homes being constructed locally bumps along at a snail’s pace, creating a potential perfect storm for those looking to buy and sell. The White Paper is important for the UK and Clapham people, as it will ensure we have long-term stability and longevity in property market as whole. Clapham home-owners and Clapham landlords need to be aware of these issues in the report to ensure they don’t lose out and ensure the local housing market is fit for purpose. The White Paper wanted more homes to be built in the next couple of decades, so it might seem counter-intuitive for existing home-owners and landlords to encourage more homes to be built and a change in the direction of housing provision – as this would appear to hav

9 babies have been born for every new home that has been built in Lambeth since 2012, deepening the Clapham housing shortage. This discovery is an important foundation for my concerns about the future of the Clapham property market - when you consider the battle that todays twenty and thirty somethings face in order to buy their first home and get on the Clapham property ladder. This is particularly ironic as these Clapham 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 Lambeth Council, the numbers of properties-built versus the number of b

The simple fact is we are not building enough properties. If the supply of new properties is limited and demand continues to soar with heightened divorce rates, i.e. one household becoming two, people living longer and continued immigration, this means the values of those existing properties continues to remain high and out of reach for a lot of people, especially the blue collar working families of Clapham. Looking at some recent statistics released by the Government, the ratio of the lower quartile house prices to lower quartile gross annual salaries in Lambeth London Borough Council has hit 15.25 to 1. What does that mean exactly and why does it matter to Clapham landlords and homeowners? If we ordered every property in the Lambeth London Borough Council area by the value of those properties, the average value of the lower quartile properties (i.e. lowest 25%) would be £400,000. If we then did the same, and ordered everyone’s salary in the same council area, the ave

A noteworthy number of buy to let landlords in Britain plan to buy more properties over the next year notwithstanding the frustrations, challenges and seismic changes in the private rented sector. According to Aldermore, the specialist Buy To Let lender, their research shows around 41% of portfolio buy to let landlord’s objective is to grow their buy to let portfolio ( i.e. Portfolio landlords are landlords that own more than one property ). So, I thought, “Are Clapham landlords feeling the same?” If so, if these numbers were applied to the Clapham private rental market, what sort effect would it have on the Clapham property market as whole? Talking to the landlords I deal with, most are feeling quite optimistic about the future of the Clapham rental market and the prospect it presents notwithstanding the doom and gloom prophecies that the property market will shrink. Many of those Clapham landlords who are looking to enlarge their portfolio are doing so because they sti

In my blog about the Clapham 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 Clapham ( 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 Clapham homeowners and Clapham landlords, so let me explain .. An a

The average asking price of property in Clapham dropped by 5% or £43,919 compared to a year ago, taking the current average asking price to £830,517 compared with £874,436 this time last year. The overall drop in asking prices is being put down to sellers being more realistic with their pricing and looking to benefit from the impending mortgage interest rate rises later in 2018. This is great news for first, second and third time buyers in Clapham starting their property hunting in the usually active spring market this year facing the opportunity of paying less for the property of their dreams. Even better news is that whilst first time buyers also have to pay less for their property, they also have the bonus of the Chancellor stopping Stamp Duty being paid by first time buyers! Looking at the different sectors of the Clapham property market, splitting it down into property types, one can see what is happening to each sector of the market with regard to their average askin

The rents paid by Clapham tenants are now standing at £2,188 per calendar month (PCM), a rise of 2.25% year on year and 0.45% higher month on month. However, this attention-grabbing monthly rent figure masks stark differences in the various different parts of the Clapham rental market. Demand in Clapham for high quality family homes with two or three bedrooms in good catchment areas for schools remains really robust due to tenants wanting access to the schools. Other influencing factors that make certain areas popular are the proximity to transport links. However, I have noticed a drop in demand (and thus rents achieved) for property where the landlord hasn’t kept the property fresh; in terms of decoration, carpets, replacement windows and poor heating. So, what does all this mean for Clapham landlords and tenants? With the new tax rules for landlords, many believed that the number of rental properties would narrow throughout 2017, as landlords sold up their Buy to