87.3% of Wellingborough
Properties have 3 or more bedrooms – Problem or Opportunity?
The
orthodox way of classifying property in the UK is to look at the number of
bedrooms rather than its size in square metres (although now we are leaving the
EU – I wonder if we can go back to feet and inches?). It seems that homeowners
and tenants are happy to pay for more space. It’s quite obvious, the more
bedrooms a house or apartment has, the bigger it is likely to be. The reason
being not only the actual additional bedroom space, but the properties with
more bedrooms tend to have larger / more reception (living) rooms. However, if
you think about it, this isn’t so astonishing given that properties with more
bedrooms would typically accommodate more people and therefore require larger
reception rooms.
In
today’s Wellingborough property market, the Wellingborough homeowners and Wellingborough
landlords I talk to are always asking me which attributes and features are
likely to make their property comparatively more attractive and which ones may
detract from the price. Over time, buyers’ and tenants’ wants and needs have
changed. In Wellingborough, location is still the No. 1 factor affecting the
value of property, and a property in the best neighbourhoods, say Hatton Park
or Doddington Grange can command a price nearly 50% higher than a similar house
in an ‘average’ area. However, after location, the next characteristic that has
a significant influence on the desirability, and thus price, of property is the
number of bedrooms and the type (i.e. Detached/ Semi/Terraced/Flat).
In
previous articles, I have analysed the Wellingborough housing stock into
bedrooms and type of property, but never before now have I cross-referenced type
against bedrooms. These figures for the Borough Council of Wellingborough area
make fascinating reading. It shows 87.3% of all properties in the area have 3
or more bedrooms
|
|
Detached
|
Semi-detached
|
Terraced (including end-terrace)
|
Flat
|
|
1 bedroom
|
19
|
34
|
32
|
92
|
|
2 bedrooms
|
94
|
713
|
915
|
257
|
|
3 bedrooms
|
1,297
|
4,226
|
4,166
|
88
|
|
4 bedrooms
|
2,608
|
884
|
489
|
14
|
|
5 or more bedrooms
|
761
|
255
|
108
|
12
|
I was genuinely surprised at the low
numbers of one and two bed properties, especially 2 bed semis detached houses, especially
as tenants like the smaller one and two bed properties in Wellingborough. You
see, it might interest the homeowners and landlords of Wellingborough, that
there has been a change in the numbers of properties on the market and the
split in bedrooms on the market over the last 12 months
For several years Wellingborough buy-to-let investors have been the only
buyers at the lower end (starter homes) of the market, as they have been
enticed by high tenant demand and attractive returns. Some Wellingborough
landlords believe their window of opportunity has started to close with the new
tax regime for landlords, whilst it already appears to be opening wider for
first-time buyers. This is great news for first time buyers ... but one final
note for Wellingborough landlords ... all is not lost ... you can still pick up
bargains, you just need to be a lot more savvy and do your homework ... one
source of such information with articles like this is the Wellingborough
property market Blog
