Before we look at Rutland though,
let us look at some interesting figures for the country as a whole.
Between 2001 and 2011, 971,144 EU citizens
came to the UK to live and of those, 171,164 of them (17.68%) have bought their
own home. It might surprise people that only 5.07% of EU migrants managed to
secure a council house. However, 676,091 (69.62%) of them went into the private
rental sector. This increase in
population from the EU has, no doubt, added great stress to the UK housing
market.
Looking at the figures, the
housing market as a whole is undoubtedly affected by migration but it has been
the private rented housing sector, especially in those areas where migrants come
together, that is affected the most.
Indeed, I have seen that many EU
migrants often compete for such housing not with UK tenants, but with other EU migrants.
In 2001, 3.68 million rented a property from a landlord in the UK.
Ten years later in 2011, whilst
EU migration added an additional 676,091 people renting a property from a
landlord, there were actually an additional 4.14 million people who became
tenants and were not EU migrants, but predominately British!
As a landlord, it is really
important to gauge the potential demand for your rental property, especially if
you are a landlord who buys property in areas popular with the Eastern European
EU migrants. To gauge the level of EU migration (and thus demand), one of the
best ways to calculate the growth of migrants is to calculate the number of
people who ask for a National Insurance number (which EU members are able to obtain).
Interestingly, in Rutland, migration
has fallen slightly over the last few years. For example, in 2006 there were 116
migrant National Insurance Cards (NIC) issued and the year after, in 2007, 119 NIC
cards were issued.
However, in 2014, this had
slipped to 106 NIC’s. However, if the pattern of other migrations since WW2
continues, over time there will be an increasing demand for owner occupied property,
which may affect the market in certain areas of high migrant concentration. On the other hand, over time some households
move into the larger housing market, reducing concentrations and pressures.
In essence, migration has affected
the Rutland property market; it couldn’t fail to because of the additional 969
working age migrants that have moved into the Rutland area since 2005.
However, it has not been the main
influence on the market. Property values in Rutland today are 9.32% higher than
they were in 2005.
According to the Office of
National Statistics, rents by tenants in the East Midlands have only grown on
average by 0.66% a year since 2005... I would say if it wasn’t for the
migrants, we would be in a far worse position when it came to the Rutland
property market. This was backed up by the then Home Secretary Theresa May back
in 2012 - more than a third of all new housing demand in Britain is caused by
inward migration and there is evidence that without the demand caused by such immigration,
house prices would be 10% lower over a 20 year period.
If you want to know more about
the Rutland property market, and for more articles like this, please visit the Rutland
Property Blog www.rutlandandstamfordpropertyblog.co.uk
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