Although it now seems as if it was set in stone, just over a week ago who would have guessed the electrion result would be a Conservative majority? Not world famous pollster Nate Silver although Matthew Paris might have. Locally we have Boris Johnson as our MP which will have escaped nobody’s attention.
For Landlords and property investors a Conservative administration will be broadly seen as a positive result. There will be see no realistic talk of rent controls and to my relief no banning of tenant fees, which has increased rents in Scotland, until we approach the next election. With Labour hopefully thinking more centre ground and centre left than left wing I hope some of that call will recede.
I have nothing against Labour, but some Labour policies concerned me greatly. This kind of market interference along with changes proposed in the Energy markets and ‘Robin Hood’ taxes on Banking led me to sign Karen Brady’s open letter in favour of the Conservatives. Economic continuity and good leadership are key to the housing market.
Perhaps with more political certainty we will see more movement in the housing market with more property coming onto the market. Current sales levels in Hillingdon are only 60% of what they were on average pre the loss in confidence in 2007. So price rises we see are on low volumes.
With a healthy rise in prices in Uxbridge and Hillingdon seen over the last year (16.9%) will we see people moving out to other areas? After the last few year of London rises their purchasing power is much stronger than it was outside London. Growth nationally was 5.6% across England and Wales.
Or will we see more people keeping hold of a fast appreciating asset and looking to let their property and use the healthy rent they would receive in Uxbridge to fund other property for them?
Only time will tell. The answer is likely to be a mixture of the both where people move away from the area.
Will we see lots more house building in Hillingdon and Uxbridge?
Certainly, we will see more housing built and where built it will be of higher density than the semi’s of Ruislip but the borough is not a key target of the Mayor’s to build new housing in London. We don’t have the volume of brownfield sites available. Although as Labour PPC Chris Summers pointed out there are some around.
Hillingdon’s appeal lies partly in it’s green spaces and the council and Mayor are unlikely to risk changing this. There are lots of green spaces in this borough and we are hard up against the green belt to the West. As much as more house building would benefit me as an agent we are unlikely to see fundamental change here.
So if the jobs market remains secure we are likely to see continued rises in prices locally. Hopefully this will be slow and gradual and controlled but such predictions are really the stuff of fair ground crystal ball readers.
Always happy to talk about the local property market!
