Are fewer people moving house in Nottingham?

I have recently been looking at the Nottingham property market for annual comparisons on property purchases and how the property market has changed from the same period a year ago. Looking at the figures I haven’t seen any change in recent months and the Nottingham market as a whole seems pretty stable. 

In the early part of the year the top end of the market did have a bit of a spasm in places such as Mayfair and Chelsea with the prospect of a Labour/SNP pact and a possible Mansion Tax for properties over £2 million, but in Nottingham we've not really been affected particularly since only two properties have sold above the £2,000,000 mark in the last 7 years.  

Looking at the numbers for Buy to Let properties in the area current figures suggest that of the 876 properties that have come on to the market in Nottingham since the 2^nd of April, 107 of them have been brought and are sold subject to contract which is just over one in eight (12.21%).

Things are starting to change in the way people in Nottingham buy and sell property.  Back in the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s the tradition was to buy a terraced house as soon as you left home and refurb it.  Meanwhile property prices had gone up, so you could trade up to a 2 bed semi after a while and repeated the process, until you found yourself in a large 4 bedroom detached house with a large mortgage. 

Looking into this a little deeper and as mentioned in my previous articles, the public’s attitude to home-ownership itself has changed over the last ten years.  The pressure for youngsters to buy has disappeared as renting, not buying is considered the norm for the younger generation. This isn't just a trend in Nottingham but a national occurrence as I have noticed that people buy property by upsizing or downsizing because they need to, not because ‘it’s what people do’.  This does means there are a lot less properties on the market compared to the last decade.

A by-product of less people moving, is less people selling their property. My research shows there are a lot fewer properties each month selling in Nottingham compared to the last 10 years.  For example, in February 2015 only 472 properties were sold in Solihull. Compare this to February 2002 were 761 properties sold and February 2003, were 835 properties sold.  I repeated this comparison to more recent years and the results were identical if not greater.  So what does this all mean?  Demand for Nottingham property isn’t decreasing but with fewer properties for sale, it means property prices are proving reasonably stable too. Consistent and steady growth of property values in Nottingham year on year, without the large peaks and troughs we saw in the late 1980’s and mid/late 2000’s might just be the thing that the Nottingham property market needs in the long term.

For further information and opinions like this on the Nottingham Property market please email me on jaclyn.bartlett@centrickproperty.co.uk