Is Chichester full of homeowners or renters?

Napoleon said we were “a nation of Shopkeepers”, but it seems we have actually become a nation of homeowners!

In 1921, over 75% of homes in the UK were rented, with just 25% being owner occupied. Up until the mid-to-late 1960’s more people rented their home (mostly from the council) than owned it.

It was only after this, with the proliferation of house building after the Second World War and the selling off of council houses, when more people started to buy their own homes instead of renting them.

The increasing availability of finance from banks and building societies enabled this trend to accelerate, which kick-started a huge increase in property prices.

Whilst house prices remained relatively stable throughout the U.K in the 1950’s and 60’s, they suddenly leapt 400% in the 70’s and a further 170% in the 80’s before flat-lining throughout most of the 1990’s (as people suffered from the effects of Black Wednesday and the 15% interest rates that went with it).

The ‘noughties’ witnessed an overall rise of 109%, as the latter half saw house prices drop after the credit crunch. The after-effects of this can still be seen as we enter the final quarter of this decade with the average property price in the U.K ‘just’ 29% up since 2010.

Does this suggest the growing popularity of buy-to-let is not the cause of ‘rocketing’ house prices? This makes sense, as most investors use sold data and rental yield projections to limit what they’re prepared to pay for a property, whereas homeowners are more willing to stretch their budget for a property that tugs at their heart strings.

Like the rest of the U.K, in Chichester this trend towards homeownership has stalled slightly in the past decade. 33,481 households in Chichester were owner-occupied in 2011, up from 32,138 in 2001.

However, when you consider the total number of households grew from 45,796 to 49,848 in this time (a lot of these new homes were bought by investors) homeownership actually dropped in Chichester from 70% to 67% from 2001 to 2011.

With this drop in the percentage of people who own their own home in Chichester, there is an increasing number of people looking to rent. Some do so out of choice whereas many more are unable to afford to buy, particularly struggling to save the necessary deposit required to do so.

Nearly every report suggests the overall level of homeownership is likely to continue to drop throughout the country. Whilst I don’t envisage a complete reversal in the trend of the past 50 years, it is clear that there will be growing demand for good quality rental property in the area.

 (This article was featured in the Chichester Observer's property section on 10th August 2017) 

Clive Janes, CRJ Lettings.

www.crjlettings.co.uk

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