Over the last month, the Dartford property market has
seen some interesting movement in house prices, as property values in the
Dartford Borough Council area rose by 1.5% in the last month, to leave annual
price growth at 17.6%. These compare well to the national figures where
property prices across the UK saw a monthly uplift of 0.42%, meaning the annual
property values across the Country are 8.3% higher, this is all despite the constraining factors of Stamp
Duty changes in the spring and more recently our friend Brexit.
Looking at the
figures for the last 18 months makes even more fascinating reading, whereby
house prices are 26.1% higher, again thought provoking when compared to the
national average figure of 13.6% higher.
However, it gets more
remarkable when we look at how the different sectors of the Dartford market are
performing. Over the last 18 months, in the Dartford Borough Council area, the
best performing type of property was the detached, which outperformed the area average by 0.76% whilst
the worst performing type was the apartment, which under-performed the area
average by 0.90%.
Now the difference
doesn’t sound that much, but remember two things, this is only over eighteen
months and the gap of 1.66% (the difference between the detached at +0.76% and
apartments at -0.90%) converts into a few thousand pounds disparity, when you consider the average
price paid for a detached property in Dartford itself over the last 12 months
was £479,800 and the average price paid for a Dartford apartment was £182,300
over the same time frame.
I know all the
Dartford landlords and homeowners will want to know how each of the property
types have performed, so this is what has happened to property prices over the
last 18 months in the area...
·
Overall Average +26.1%
·
Detached +27.1%
·
Semi Detached +26.9%
·
Terraced +26.2%
·
Apartments +25.0%
So what does all this mean to Dartford homeowners and
Dartford landlords and what does the future hold?
When I looked at the month-by-month figures for the area,
you can quite clearly see there is a slight tempering of
the Dartford property market over
these last few months. I have mentioned in previous articles that the number of
properties on the market in Dartford has increased this summer, something that
hasn’t happened since 2008. Greater choice for buyers means, using simple
supply and demand economics, that top prices won’t be achieved on every
Dartford property. You see, some of that growth in Dartford property values
throughout early 2016 may have come about because of a surge in house purchase
activity, an indirect result of the increase in stamp duty on second homes from April, thus
providing a temporary boost to prices.
However, it may be possible the recent
pattern of robust employment growth, growing real earnings and low borrowing
costs will tilt the demand/supply seesaw in favour of sellers and exert upward
pressure on prices once again in the quarters ahead.
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