That isn’t a typo, of the
46,220 households in Chelmsford, 17,679 of those properties don’t only have one
spare bedroom, but two spare bedrooms! … and it is this topic I want to talk
about this week, my Chelmsford Property Market Blog readers – because this could
be the cure for Chelmsford’s housing crisis.
The fundamental problem of the Chelmsford housing ‘crisis’, is the fact
that the supply of homes to live in has not historically met demand, increasing
property values (and in turn rents), thus ensuring home ownership becomes an unattainable
ambition for the twenty something’s
of Chelmsford.
Call me a realist, but it’s
obvious that either demand needs to drop or supply needs to rise to stop this
trend getting worse for the generations to come. Don’t get me wrong, I admire Downing Street’s
plans to build 200,000 starter homes which will be offered to
first time buyers under 40 with a minimum 20% discount price. However, the building of starter homes on current building sites, where
new homes builders already have to build a certain number of affordable ‘starter’
homes at the moment under a different scheme, does not increase the stock of
new ‘starter’ homes, it simply replaces one affordable scheme with another.
One option that could
resolve the housing crisis is if the Government literally looked closer to home,
concentrating on matching households with the appropriate sized home.
In Chelmsford,
33,178 households have one spare bedroom and of these, 17,679 have two or more
spare bedrooms.
This compares to 1,408
households in Chelmsford that are overcrowded (i.e. there are more people than
bedrooms in the property).
Looking specifically at
the homeowners of Chelmsford, 11,424 owner occupied Chelmsford houses have one
spare bedroom. Now having a spare
bedroom is not considered a luxury. However,
in addition to those 11,424 households with one spare bedroom, there are on
top, a further 16,199 owner occupied Chelmsford households with two or more
spare bedrooms.
Therefore, I am beginning
to see there is the spare capacity in the Chelmsford housing market. Principally, I will concentrate on the group
that makes up the bulk of this category, the owner occupiers of large
properties, in their 60’s and 70’s, where the kids flew the nest back in the
80’s and 90’s. They call it
‘downsizing’, when you sell a big property, where the extra bedrooms are no
longer required, to move into a smaller and, usually, less expensive property.
However, there are many explanations
why these individuals do not downsize. These people have lived in the same house for
30, 40 even 50 years, and as one matures in life, many people do not want to depart
from what they see as the family home. Much
time has been invested in making friends in the area and it’s nice to have all
those rooms in case every grandchild decided to visit, at the same time, and they
brought their friends! But on a more
serious note, more and more people are beginning to downsize earlier, but in my
opinion, not at a fast enough rate. As
the years go one, we will have a situation where younger families will be
living in smaller and smaller houses, whilst all the large houses with a couple
of 70 something empty-nesters rattling around them! I believe the Government should put more weight
behind downsizing, because with the right incentives, many could be encouraged
to think again and make the spare rooms available.
.. and it would have to
be incentives, as the using the stick (instead of the carrot) would be
political suicide for any party, especially the Tory’s. One option is to allow retired downsizers not
to pay stamp duty on the new property, saving them thousands of pounds and
another for the planners to work with builders to build not only starter homes
for under 40’s, but also have housing built just for retired downsizers ... or
is this one step too far in ‘social engineering’?
The fact is not enough
properties are being built in Chelmsford, and with population rising at a
faster rate, something needs to be done.
However, I believe the Chelmsford population (and in fact the whole of
the UK) is slowly turning into a more European model of house ownership. In Europe, most people rent in their 20’s and
30’s, only buying in their 40’s and 50’s, when they inherit money from the sale
of their late parent’s property. That works particularly well in Germany and I
can’t see why it can’t work here. In the
meantime, there is an opportunity in the coming 20 years for people to
supplement their pension by buying smaller properties to rent out, as that is
where the demand will be in the next few decades in Chelmsford. For even more thoughts on the Chelmsford
Property Market – visit the Chelmsford Property Blog www.chelmsfordpropertyblog.com
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