9,700 People Live In Every Square Mile Of Wellingborough – Is Wellingborough Over Crowded?

Wellingborough is already in the clutches of a population crisis that has now started to affect the quality of life of those living in Wellingborough. There are simply not enough homes in Wellingborough to house the greater number of people wanting to live in the town. The burden on public services is almost at breaking point with many parents unable to send their child to their first choice of primary or secondary school and the chances of getting a decent Dentist or GP Doctor Surgery next to nil.

Well that’s what the papers would say.. but let’s look at real numbers, and in particular my specialist subject of Wellingborough Property, with the housing issue in Wellingborough. To start with, the UK has roughly 1,065 people per square mile – the second highest in Europe. The total area of Wellingborough itself is 5.046 square miles and there are 49,100 Wellingborough residents, meaning …

9,700 people live in each square mile of Wellingborough, it’s no wonder we appear to be bursting at the seams!

… but yet again, newspapers, politicians and property market bloggers quote big numbers to sell more newspapers, get elected or get people to read their blog (I recognise the irony!). A square mile is enormous, so the numbers look correspondingly large (and headline grabbing). Most people reading this will know what an ‘acre’ is, but those younger readers who don’t, it is an imperial unit of measurement for land and it is approximately 63 metres square.

In Wellingborough, only 13.87 people live in every acre of Wellingborough … not as headline grabbing, but a lot closer to home and relative to everyday life, and if I am being honest, a figure that doesn’t seem that bad.

Yet, the issue at hand is, we need more homes building. In 2007, Tony Blair set a target that 240,000 homes a year needed to be built to keep up with the population growth, whilst the Tory’s new target since 2010 was a more modest 200,000 a year. However, since 2010, as a country, we have only been building between 140,000 and 150,000 houses a year. So where are we going to build these homes .. because we have no space! Or do we?

Well, let me tell you this fascinating piece of information I found out recently in an official Government report. Looking specifically at England (as it is the most densely populated country of the Union), all the 20 million English homes cover only 1.1% of its land mass. That is not a typo, only one point one per cent (1.1%) of land in England is covered by residential property. In more detail, of all the land in the Country -

·        

.. leaving 88.5% as Open Countryside (and if you think about it, add to that the gardens, which are green spaces, and the country is 92.8% greenspace)

As a country, we have plenty of space to build more homes for the younger generation and the five million more homes needed in the next 20 years would use only 0.25% of the country’s land. Now I am not advocating building massive housing estates and 20 storey concrete and glass behemoth apartment blocks next to local beauty spots such as Irchester Country Park or Croyland Park, but with some clever planning and joined up thinking, we really do need to think outside the box when it comes to how we are going to build and house our children and our children’s children in the coming 50 years in Wellingborough. If anyone has their own ideas, I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, if you would like to read other articles about Wellingborough Property Market, please visit the Wellingborough Property Market Blog

The 4,604 Wellingborough Savers batten down the hatches with low interest rates set to continue into the 2020’s

You might ask, what has the plight of the Wellingborough savers to do with the Wellingborough Property Market … everything in fact.  Read the newspapers, and every financial wizard is stating that with the decision of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee in early August to cut the Bank of England base rate to an all time low of 0.25 per cent, savers should prepare themselves for interest rates to stay low well into the early 2020’s.

... And this isn’t some made up story to capture the headlines of newspaper editors. The yield (posh word for interest rate or return) on 10-year Government bonds is currently 0.61 per cent. This indicates that the money markets believe that the Bank of England’s base rate will, on average over the next ten years, be below the 0.61% rate they are buying the 10 year bonds at (because they would loose money if the average was over 0.61%). UK Interest rates are going to be low for a long time.

For those who have saved throughout their working lives and are looking for ways to maximise their savings, tying their money into property could prove advantageous. You see as a saver, I did a search of the internet and the best savings rate I could find was a 5 year fixed rate at 2.5% a year with Weatherbys Bank. Your £200,000 nest egg would earn you £5,000 a year – not much. However, on the other side of the fence, growth in Wellingborough house prices and princely buy to let yields have made property investment in Wellingborough an appealing option for many. According to my research, the...

Average Yield over the last five years for

Wellingborough Buy to let property has been 5.6% a year

… and average Property Values in over the same period have risen by 28.2%.

Using these averages, the Wellingborough landlord’s property would be worth £256,400 and they would have received a total of £56,000 in rent – making the total return £312,400. Meanwhile, whilst our 4,604 Wellingborough Saver’s, using the average savings rates for the last 5 years, even if they had reinvested the interest, their £200,000 would only be £221,184.

There are risks as well as benefits to buy to let though. As my blog readers know, I tell it like it is and investing in buy to let means locking up capital in a property that may fall in value. Another option would be stock market income based investment funds, which are paying around 5%, especially if put your nest egg into a tax free Stocks and Shares ISA. Although you can only add £15,240 a year into an ISA, but you would also have the ability to sell up quickly if you want ... but one last thought…

The other side of the coin is that you cannot buy an unloved ‘stock market income based investment fund’ and set about renovating it and adding value yourself. The investment fund isn’t something that you can touch and feel, isn’t something tangible, isn’t something physical, isn’t something concrete, it isn’t bricks and mortar ... and that is why my fellow Wellingborough homeowners and Wellingborough landlords is why the love affair of the British and Property will continue.

If you are considering becoming a new buy to let landlord in Wellingborough, what do you know about the Wellingborough property market? Do what many established landlords do and visit the Wellingborough Property Blog where there is a catalogue of articles like this and where the best buy to lets deals are in Wellingborough