WILL THE GENERAL ELECTION IMPACT HOMEOWNERS? I
N HUDDERSFIELD, of the 69,144 households, 20,948 homes are owned without a mortgage and 22,796 homes are owned by a mortgage. In the run up to the general election, many homeowners are understandably concerned about its impact on the local property market. I think the best way to predict the future is to look at the past.
Of the last five general elections only the last two were completely uncertain. Therefore, I will compare the 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections and what happened in terms of number of houses sold and the prices achieved.
It is clear, from looking at the number of monthly transactions, that there is a rhythm or seasonality to the housing market. That seasonality – the periodic fluctuations that regularly occur, ie. sales dip around Christmas and rise again in spring – has not changed since 1995.
To remove that seasonality, I have also taken into consideration a 12-month ‘moving average,’ which enables us to look at the ‘de-seasonalised’ housing transaction numbers. Looking at these figures, it’s clear that after the 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections, there was significant uplift in number of households sold. Meanwhile in 2010 and 2015, there was slight drop in house transactions – this seems to suggest that election uncertainty can cause a fall in the number of households sold.
Next, I thought it would be worth looking at what happened to property prices. Perhaps surprisingly, none of the general elections seemed to have had any effect on property values. The timescale between calling the election and the date itself often means that any property buyer’s concern and indecision before the election is worked out by the time the results While the property value growth in Huddersfield may be more subdued in the coming few years, it seems it could be for reasons other than the general election. The growth of rents has taken a slight hit in the last few months as there has been a oversupply