Croydon House Prices - Steady as she goes

As we head towards the election (despite knowing what will probably happen) the question for ‘would be’ sellers and buyers is: “Should we move, or should we wait”?

New parties can throw out Stamp Duty holidays and buying incentives to the public. A more positive outlook could convince the lenders to drop their rates to levels we might not have seen for two years, but let’s see…

So, to look into the future, let’s just have a glimpse at the past as it often provides answers.

We are a far enough away from the time that the rates started to rise, and there has been more than enough transactions in my area (Croydon) to give us a sense of where we are and what might happen going forward.

Before we look at these numbers, it’s good to take into consideration that any major reduction in mortgage rates would increase property prices as this would increase demand almost immediately.

However, this is all relative, and whatever you would be buying would also increase (so in effect, if you are selling you would have more people competing for your home, but you will have more competition on your purchase).

I don’t necessarily believe the rates will reduce yet for the simple reason that there isn’t much money swilling about to allow for buyer incentives in the Government purse.

Then there are swap rates (see previous blog), although reducing swap rates a little is not going to allow for lower mortgage rates for a good couple of years.

Ok, so if you live (or want to move into) Croydon, what property prices should you be looking at.

In the past 12 months the prices in Croydon have changed 0.1% (downwards), so nothing scary about that but we can break this down a bit more and look at property types, over a longer period, say 5 years (Covid years) and more importantly the last 2 years

                              5 Years                                                                                                        2 Years

Flat/Maisonette- £268,000 to £282,000 (+5%)                                                          £285,000 to £282,000 (-1%)

Terraced Houses- £354,000 to £398,000 (+12%)                                                      £401,000 to £398,000 (-1%)

Semi-Detached- £483,000 to £543,000 (+12%)                                                         £543,000 to £543,000 (O%)

Detached house £752,000 to £821,000 (+9%)                                                            £841,000 to £821,000 (-2%)

As you can see the Covid years, the Stamp Duty holidays, the low rates, and the pent-up demand pushed the prices significantly. But if you look at the last 2 years (which we can hang our hats on), the higher, steadier rates have meant that the market has been …well very steady.

So as always I would say, buy if you want to, buy if you can afford to….it’s better than renting!!