Wellingborough Property Market Report - July 2024

The average asking price of the 712 properties for sale in Wellingborough was £272,028 in June 2024.

This is a small rise of £750 (0.3%) from the same month of 2023. Since I started collecting the data in January 2021, the average asking price has risen from £215,584 to £272,028. A rise of £56,520 (or 26.2%).

As we can see, asking prices are levelling out at around the £275,000 mark, with asking prices of sold properties at £238,032, though this is still £34,072 (14.3%) lower than the average asking price.

Whilst this is quite a significant gap, it’s far less than the peak difference of £62,545 (22.9%) in October 2023 and less than £52,171 (23.8%) in May this year.

For the previous four months, the amount of sold properties has remained relatively steady at 10.4%, 9.3%, 9.8% and 10.1% in February, March, April and May respectively. In June, this fell to 8.7% ,ost likely due to the approcaching summer and the looming election.

The high I have on record is 14% in the post lockdown market of February 2022, and with interest rates at near 0%.

The lowest being 4.5% just a few months back in the festive period of December 2023.

If asking prices were to fall by 5%, they would be £258,499 (approximately the same as they were in February 2022)
If they were to fall 10%, they would be £244,894 (equivalent to around October 2021 prices)

Election Thoughts

Robert Gardner, chief economist at Nationwide, said that elections don’t cause “volatility” in prices or generally change house price trends.

He said: “On the whole, prevailing trends have been maintained just before, during and after UK general elections. Broader economic trends appear to dominate any immediate election-related impacts.

Nationwide also explored if general elections had any impact on mortgage approvals, but also saw little impact.

He added: “It appears that housing market trends have not traditionally been impacted around the time of general elections. Rightly or wrongly, for most homebuyers, elections are not foremost in their minds while buying or selling property.”

Tim Bannister of Rightmove, says “Over the past four years, home-movers have faced numerous challenges, including a global pandemic, a shortage of housing supply, and rapidly changing prices. For many, 2024 is finally the year to make their move, and they’re determined to proceed with their plans to secure their next home,”

Adding “Previous elections would indicate we may be set for a particularly strong summer once the election is over, especially if interest rates start to fall. However, every election is different, and it would depend on whether any significant housing policies are also introduced, so we’ll need to wait and see what happens to have a better view of activity for the rest of the year.”

Lettings

The average asking rent in Wellingborough fell by £25 last month, from £1,032 to £1,007.

The current asking rent has increased by £164 (19.5%) compared to the same month last year and £304 (43.2%) from when I started collating the data in January 2021.

Zoopla projects that UK rental inflation will halve to +5% in 2024.

For rental prices to slow down more quickly, there needs to be an increase in available properties and/or the financial burden on landlords via mortgage rates and increased legislation to come down.

Nevertheless, it’s improbable that any changes in the above will be substantial enough to significantly affect overall rental increases.

In fact, it's extremely plausible that the likely abolition of Section 21 may see more landlords leaving the private rented sector, leaving fewer homes available to rent and therefore rent increases due to higher demand.