Are less properties for sale in Amber Valley and Erewash?

 

My friends often call me an estate agent, but then I remind them that whilst a lot of estate agents do both sales of property and letting of property, we are a letting agent only and always plan to be. One landlord who emailed me (which followed on with a telephone conversation) about the Amber Valley and Erewash property market got talking to me about how he thought there were less for sale boards in Amber Valley and Erewash than there were ten, even fifteen years ago.

All the newspapers talk about is a crisis of a lack of properties. Building new property is not like the Mars bar factory that can keep the machines going an extra couple of hours to make more Mars bars. The Government says 200,000 properties need to be built each year for the next ten years. For Erewash to take its share of that 200,000, that would mean 441 properties would have to be built in the area each year for the next ten years, whilst in Amber Valley, they would need to build 476 properties in the same time period... yet in the last ten years in Erewash we have only build 119 properties a year on average and in Amber Valley 158 per year.

People in popular areas, such as our own in Amber Valley and Erewash, say they want more properties for their children and are usually in favour of more homes being built, as long as they are not in their local area. Increasing supply of houses leads to more congestion, crowded amenities and loss of greenbelt. Then, and here is the big reason, those homeowners have a vested interest to keep the building low because an increased supply reduces the value of their existing home.

Therefore, existing local homeowners have a vested interest in keeping the supply as low as possible in their area. Finally, a lack of council houses since Mrs T. encouraged the sale of council housing after she was elected in 1979, the number of new social housing to replace them (a euphemism for council housing) has been very low.

However, getting back to the point, it’s a simple fact that since the 2007 crash, the number of properties that are selling in  Derbyshire has dramatically reduced. In the late 1990’s  around 1,256 properties a month were selling each month in Derbyshire. In the first half of the 2000’s decade, when we had a rising market, around 1,640 properties were changing hands each month in Derbyshire. In 2008, the year of the property crash that dropped to 470 per month and didnt grow that much until the back end of last year, whilst in 2014 (throughout the Spring and Summer of 2014) on average 1,100 properties in Derbyshire have sold.

If you would like to discuss my thoughts on the rental markets in Ilkeston, Eastwood, Heanor and Belper, please pick up the phone on 01332 910499 or pop into our offices in Denby House Busyness Centre, Tailor Lane, Heanor DE75 17A or email me at jeremybullock@sprucetree.co.uk