Buckinghamshire Property Market
Overview
Without a doubt the last twelve months has proved to be a bit of a roller coaster ride in the Buckinghamshire property market. Throughout 2010 stock levels were drastically low causing heavy competitive bidding particularly on the ‘best in breed’ houses. We witnessed some houses achieving 2007 prices and in a few cases more whilst other houses languished on the market for months. The start to 2011 has been surprisingly active and it appears that this year may well start off as last year with the continued lack of stock and buyers hungry to purchase. Estate agents were busy in November and December (prior to the arrival of snow!) conducting market appraisals, however we are yet to see any real commitment in numbers from sellers placing their property on the market.
What does 2011 hold for the property market in Buckinghamshire? National newspapers continue to highlight that the national property market is in a downward spiral, however we feel that Buckinghamshire will weather the ‘storm’ better than most. We do not foresee a large drop in Buckinghamshire property prices, we suspect circa 2% at most across the year, with prices starting to stabilise and move upward (although gently) from 2012.
HS2 has dominated the news in this area ever since the official announcement by the government back in March 2010. The rumour mill has been turning at a rate of knots and the potential blight has caused more upset than the blight itself will probably cause. We have spoken with numerous surveyors, developers and estate agents, the general consensus seems to be that if you own a property less than one mile away from the ‘preferred route 3′ then it is likely that the value of your house has been adversely affected, but by how much? No one fully knows the answer to this as it is such a subjective topic, what it comes down to is whether a buyer is willing to take a view on HS2 and what price they are willing to pay and whether the owner is willing to sell at that price.
