On the hunt for a home with more space? Here’s where you should look… (and why you should focus on price per square foot)
The UK housing market is nothing but varied. So, where can you get the most value for your money?
Well, on a price-per-square foot basis, it’s Hartlepool. Buyers in this town on the north east coast pay an average £118 per square foot of space.
The most expensive is Kensington & Chelsea, where you’ll need to dig deep to fork out an average £1,373 per square foot for a home in this exclusive enclave of London.
What’s that you say? That at least Kensington and Chelsea’s residents can console themselves with their world-class museums and galleries as well as smart shops, bars and restaurants on their doorstep?
That may be true, but Hartlepool also has some great attractions — not least the National Museum of the Royal Navy. And though there is no Harvey Nichols, the beach at nearby Seaton Carew offers a huge expanse of white sand, plus a terrific links golf course laid out by Alister Mackenzie, the man who designed Augusta National. So maybe it’s time to swap your tiny £450k flat above a shop for a six-bedroom Victorian villa at the same price.
Handsome outside, immaculate within, this six-bedroom house in Hartlepool at £450,000 has a large, private garden with summerhouse.
These figures, incidentally, come from Zoopla, who have calculated that across the UK, the average home costs £300 per square foot. To put that into context, it means you’re paying around £8,000 simply for enough space to have a standard double bed.
‘Looking at this measurement [price per square foot] is a far more logical way to assess value for money,’ says Izabella Lubowiecka, senior property researcher at Zoopla.
‘A property that comes with an extra bedroom or bathroom might still not have the right amount of additional space the buyer is looking for. Examining the square footage of a property can help buyers to identify if a property has that space and if the cost per square foot is worth it,’ she says. It’s hard to disagree.
Nearly half of full-time workers priced out of home ownership…
Affordability seems to be on the minds of those at Zoopla. The property portal has also revealed that four in 10 working households can’t afford to buy a two or three-bedroom home with a 80% loan-to-value mortgage. This rises to three quarters (74%) of full-time workers in London.
Zoopla also warns that buying a home is becoming more challenging across a growing number of regional cities outside southern England. In York, some 61% of workers can’t afford to buy a two or three-bedroom home, followed by 57% in Trafford, Greater Manchester, 46% in Leicester, and 45% in Edinburgh.
Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, says: ‘The more people that are priced out of buying, the greater the pressure on the rental sector where rents have risen faster than house prices since the pandemic.’
…while house prices rise
Unfortunately, the latest crop of house price data won’t be of much comfort to those struggling to afford a home. House prices appear to be going up (for the moment, at least).
According to Halifax, UK house prices have increased for the third month in a row, edging up by 0.3% (£859) in September. Year-on-year prices are up 4.7%, the strongest rate since November 2022.
But Amanda Bryden, head of mortgages at Halifax, says it’s ‘essential’ to look at these figures in context: ‘While the typical property value has risen by around £13,000 over the past year, this increase is largely a recovery of the ground lost over the previous 12 months. Looking back two years, prices have increased by just 0.4% (£1,202).’
Over at RICS, chartered surveyors report that UK house prices are rising for the first time in two years as the housing market continues to pick up.
How much a parking space could add to your asking price
And finally, who knew a parking space could be so prized? According to Yopa’s analysis of Rightmove listings, homes that come with parking command a 3% (£12,000) asking price premium compared with those that don’t.
The premium is highest in the north east, where the asking price of a property with a parking space is 19% (£36,000) higher than those without one in the region.
In London, a parking space can boost the asking price of a property to the tune of 11%. This equates to £72,989 – the largest monetary premium of all the regions.
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