Post Brexit...Stamford Property Prices set to drop £18,100 in the next 12 months?

Even the sanest person in Britain has to admit the Brexit vote will, in one shape or another, affect the UK Property market.  Excluding central London (which is another world), most commentators are saying prices will be affected by around 10%.  So, looking at the commentators’ thoughts in more detail, property values in Stamford will be 10% lower than they would have been if we hadn’t voted to leave the EU.

 

As the average value of a property in the South Kesteven District Council area is £181,000, this means property values are set to drop for the average Stamford property by £18,100.  But, before we all go into panic mode, remember the devil is always in the detail.

Look at the phrase again, and I have highlighted the relevant part “Property values in Stamford will be 10% lower than they would have been if we hadn’t voted to leave the EU”.

Property values today, according to the Land Registry are 6.81% higher than a year ago in the South Kesteven District Council area. The 12 months before that they rose by 3.14%, and the 12 months before that, they rose by 6.28%.  If we hadn’t voted to leave, I believe using these figures, we could have safely assumed Stamford House prices would have been 5% higher by summer 2017.

And, that’s the point.  We won’t see a house price crash in Stamford, it’s just that house prices in a year’s time will be 5% lower than they are now (i.e. 5% less the 10% lower figure because of Brexit). Let’s look at the historic figures and how that compares to today’s figures for the South Kesteven District Council area and Stamford as a whole.

Average Value of a property 20 years ago                £  47,800

Average Value of a property 10 years ago                £157,800

Average Value of a property 2 years ago                  £164,300

Average Value of a property 1 year ago                    £169,500

Average Value of a property today                            £189,000

Projected Value of a property in 12 months’ time      £171,950

 

Therefore, I believe the average value of a Stamford property will be £9,050 lower in 12 months’ time than today.

 

That’s not to say Stamford property prices might not dip slightly in the run up to Christmas (in fact they always have done just about every year since the year 2000 and most of those were “boom years”).  But in 12 months’ time, this is my considered opinion of where Stamford property values will be, and looking at historic prices, even if I (and many other property market commentators) are wrong and they drop 10% from TODAY’S figure - in the whole scheme of things, we have been through a Credit Crunch, Black Monday and 15% interest rates over the last 20 to 30 years, and still Stamford house prices have always bounced back.
 

Whilst the UK's vote for Brexit has created an uncertainty in the housing market, there is no need to panic and prospective buyers should merely use common sense about their purchases.  I always say to people to be prudent and if you are taking out a mortgage, at some stage during the life of that mortgage, circumstances will be difficult.  We won’t have a 2008 Credit crunch fire sale of properties because after the ‘Mortgage Market Review’ which took place in the spring of 2013, mortgage borrowers are not as highly leveraged this time around.  As a result of this, with any luck there will not be too many distressed sales, which cause widespread price reductions.