What is really happening in the Falmouth Property Market?

 

Well its been a few months since Brexit and the pattern of life has taken its usual form. We know the winners of TV favourites The Great British Bake Off, Strictly Come Dancing and I’m a (sort of ) Celebrity get me out of here!  Andy Murray wins a BBC Sports Personality of the Year again, and sorry Arsenal fans.... we already know they you are not going to win the Premier League title (again!). The newspapers are returning to their mixed messages of good news, bad news and indifferent news about the Brit’s favourite subject after the weather ... the property market.

The thing is, the UK does not have one housing market. Instead, it is a patchwork of mini property markets all performing in a different way. At one end of scale is Kensington and Chelsea, which has seen average prices drop in the last twelve months by 6.2% whilst in our South West region, house prices are 8% higher (12 months to October). But what about Falmouth?

Property prices in Falmouth are 0.3% lower than a year ago

and 2.7% lower than last month.

So what does this mean for Falmouth landlords and homeowners? Not that much unless you are buying or selling in reality. Most sellers are buyers anyway, so if the one you are buying has gone down, yours has gone down.  If you look hard enough, even in this market, there are still some relative bargains to be had in Falmouth.

However, the most important question you should be asking though is not only is what happening to property prices, but exactly which price band is selling? I like to keep an eye on the property market in Falmouth on a daily basis because it enables me to give the best advice and opinion on what (or not) to buy in Falmouth.

If you look at Falmouth and split the property market into four equalled sized price bands. Each price band would have around 25% of the property in Falmouth, from the lowest in value band (the bottom 25%) all the way through to the highest 25% band (in terms of value).

·        Nil to £160k                       44 properties for sale and 25 sold (stc) i.e. 36% sold

·        £160k to £270k                 48 properties for sale and 59 sold (stc) i.e. 55% sold

·        £270k to £375k                 47 properties for sale and 36 sold (stc) i.e. 43% sold        

·        £375k +                              52 properties for sale and 35 sold (stc) i.e. 40% sold

Fascinating don’t you think that it is the middle Falmouth market that is doing the best and the bottom end doing the worst? Is there any logic to this? We know that the first-time buyer market is fragile locally because of incomes. Are we to surmise too that the traditional buy to let landlords who buy at the lower end have held off buying too? Most certainly.

The next nine months’ activity will be crucial in understanding which way the market will go this year after Brexit ... but, Brexit or no Brexit, people will always need a roof over their head and that is why the property market has ridden the storms of oil crisis’ in the 1970’s, the 1980’s depression, Black Monday in the 1990’s, and latterly the credit crunch together with the various house price crashes of 1973, 1987 and 2008.

Why? Given Britain’s chronic lack of housing demand will prop up house prices and prevent a post spike crash. There is always a silver lining when it comes to the property market!

Notes –

·        House Price changes from the HM Land Registry Statistics for this area.

·        Price Bands – Using Data on what is for sale and SSTC on Rightmove