Affordable Property Vanishes from UK Hotspots

Latest figures show that Londoners bought more than 112,000 homes outside the capital this year, an increase of 62% compared with 2020, according to the estate agent Hamptons. They spent £54.9bn, the highest annual spend on record, reflecting soaring property prices, which have been lifted by the government’s temporary cut to stamp duty. The average UK house price has risen from £450,460 in 2020 to £486,890 in 2021. Exeter is among several UK areas that have become honeypots for city people who decided during the lockdowns that another life must be possible. House prices are surging too in Richmondshire in North Yorkshire, Pembrokeshire in west Wales, and the Scottish borders. Cities such as Exeter are seeing already threadbare supplies of affordable housing pushed to breaking point. Local people can’t get anywhere in the system. People from London are coming in and putting in a ridiculous offer over the asking price and getting what they want. These might not be houses that local people could afford, but it does trickle down. Exeter’s social waiting list grew 47% from 2017 to 2020 to reach about 2,600 households. House prices went up 8.5% in the last year. Meanwhile the population grows, more properties become second homes and private landlords increasingly switch long-term rentals to short-stay Airbnbs. The pressure is such that Hannaford said the council was even concerned about how to find homes for 67 Afghan refugees currently in a hotel after this summer’s evacuation from Kabul. Attracting social workers, teachers and care workers is becoming harder. There is a plan to build 500 council homes but it is playing catch-up. Blaming the arrival of outsiders may not be entirely fair given the affordable housing crisis in Exeter has been brewing for years. Landlords have bought up swathes of stock to rent to students and, in a nationally recurrent theme, there is public opposition to construction on the surrounding green fields. Newcomers resist any suggestion they are causing a problem and some stressed they wanted to become part of the community and contribute with their different skills and experience. The sharpest house price rises in the year to August have been in desirable, more spacious locations outside the major cities where there have also been substantial increases in people waiting for social housing. The list includes Wychavon, Stratford-upon-Avon, County Durham, Cheshire West and Newark and Sherwood in Nottinghamshire. In these places, average house prices rose between 13% and 20% in a year while waiting lists have lengthened over the last three years. In West Devon, which includes half of Dartmoor, house prices have risen 20% in the last year and 800 households are waiting for social housing.