The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
Two locations – house prices soar in one and collapse in the other. Why?
Mattie Brignal and Fran Ivens look at a pair of postcodes that illustrate the extremes in property value reality of the UK
Britain’s housing market is weathering the storm. Despite soaring interest rates and the cost of living crisis squeezing household budgets, the predicted collapse in house prices has not materialised.
Instead, the picture was mixed. House prices last year fell by around 1.8pc, according to Nationwide, while Halifax, the UK’s largest mortgage provider, recorded a 1.7pc rise.
But the modest fluctuations mask dramatic extremes.
Using the Telegraph’s house price calculator, which drills down into 8,000 postcode sectors, we found the areas where the changes have been most volatile.
At one extreme is RG9 6, a district of the Chilterns that crosses Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, where house prices soared by 63.5pc last year.
At the other is NE37 3, Sulgrave, a suburb of Washington, Tyne and Wear, between Newcastle and Sunderland, where prices plummeted by 53.5pc.
Telegraph Money visited both to find out why prices are swinging so wildly.
Leaning over the handlebars of his bike on a freezing, blue-skied January afternoon, Kyle, 24, looks out across his neighbourhood and sighs. “Kids from here are a bit lost,” he says. “For young people, there’s nothing to do.”
Kyle has spent all his life in Sulgrave and its reputation precedes it. “There are drug addicts,” Kyle says. “But even the junkies are friendly.”
Dragged down by a lack of opportunities and a notoriety for crime it can’t seem to shake, prospective house-buyers are shunning the area, despite rock-bottom prices. The average property price fell 53.5pc from £73,270 to £34,074 last year, the Telegraph’s house price calculator revealed. The NE37 3 postcode takes in 3,000 households, so the rate of change can be affected by low levels of transactions or a few particularly high or low sale prices.
The nosedive was the steepest house price fall of any in the country.
Yet the collapse did not extend to the wider Washington area. In the nearby NE37 7 and NE37 8 postcodes, encompassing Washington town centre and the Fatfield and Oxclose neighbourhoods, house prices jumped by 18.5pc and 31.1pc respectively.
Walking around Sulgrave, it’s not immediately obvious why house prices were hit so hard. Besides the odd crisp packet fluttering in the breeze, the streets are clean. Neatly-trimmed grass verges undulate, Teletubbies- style, between houses and pavement, giving the neighbourhood a wide-open feel.
William “Fred” Wilson stands outside his semi- detached bungalow on Gladstone Terrace watching the traffic drift pass and saying hello to passers-by. A retired policeman from London, Mr Wilson moved to Sulgrave 10 years ago, drawn by rock-bottom property prices.
The cheapest houses in the country can be found in Sulgrave. Flats on one road – Waterloo Walk – sold for an average of £16,250 between January and October 2021, making it the cheapest street to live on in England.
Across the road from Mr Wilson’s home sits a row of red-brick Victorian terraced houses, originally built as one property, now split into two flats. “They look run-down,” he says. “But we don’t have any aggravation, no bother.”
Sulgrave is a mix of cul- de-sacs and winding residential avenues, with a light industrial estate to the north. It is a conveniently placed suburb for workers employed at the Nissan factory, a 10-minute drive away.
A half-hour walk to the south of Sulgrave is the leafy centre of Washington, with attractive sandstone cottages and smart new-builds. The war memorial next to the Cross Keys pub is surrounded by miniature palm trees, flower beds and topiaried hedges.
Along the road from the Holy Trinity church is the Old Hall, an elegant 17th-century manor house and National Trust site, the ancestral home of the family of George Washington, the first president of the United States.
“Washington residents are, on the whole, commuters,” says Zak McCready-Mace, an estate agent at the Washington branch of Gordon Lamb. “You’ve got the A1 and A19. It’s a great area in terms of travel to work with Newcastle and Sunderland just there.
“It’s just an affordable place to live.” Yet the northern neighbourhood of Sulgrave has gained a notoriety that is putting off potential homeowners. “Sulgrave is known as the worst area in Washington. It has very rundown flats, high crime rates – it’s the worst on the social side of things compared to the majority of the town. It’s a little bit disregarded. Sulgrave is always last on the lists of the districts to sort. All of that reflects in house prices.”
He adds that properties in Sulgrave have struggled to sell in the last year. “It’s mostly a rented-out area now, very few owners actually live there themselves. The majority [of houses] we’re selling are landlords looking to get out.”
Kyle’s friends, Baz and Noah, who run the Premier store on Ellen Terrace, also grew up in Sulgrave. “It’s got a bad rep,” Noah says. Are people moving out of the area? “No, they’re moving in. They like it as it’s so cheap. We’ve got the shop so we know faces, and there’s constantly new faces. Everyone is very respectful.”
TURVILLE
If you think of a classic British film or TV production over the past 50 years there is a decent chance at least some of it was filmed in Hambleden Valley. Nestled in the Chiltern Hills, it is home to a collection of chocolate- box villages with houses dating back to the 1400s.
Turville, one of villages, was the setting for The Vicar of Dibley – and now has its own female vicar. It also provided the location for Goodnight Mister Tom and Midsomer Murders and is overlooked by Cobstone Mill, the famous windmill from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
The mill is currently up for sale for around £ 9m and, says village chatter, has had some famous faces take an interest in the unique property.
With rolling hills on all sides and a close-knit local community, it is just half an hour from central London by train ( plus a short drive), making it a family-friendly commuter’s paradise. Which goes some way to explaining why house prices have risen so sharply over the past year, despite the interest rate turmoil that has sent prices in other areas downwards. According to our analysis, in 2022 properties in this postcode – RG9 6 – sold for £1,053,900 on average. Deals closed in 2023 were more likely to be around £1,723,333 – a rise of 63.5pc.
In stark contrast, UK house prices fell 2.1pc in the year to November.
Houses do not often come up for sale due to the area’s popularity. There is currently only one property for sale in Turville, a 13-bedroom manor house with an asking price of £12.5m.
“There are a limited number [of properties in the area]. So when they do sell, these are little gems that are really sought after,” says Adam Sayers of Savills in Henley-on-Thames.
Diane Thurmond-Baker, 59, has lived in the village nearly all her life. Born in Orchard Cottage just off the main square, she and her husband now live a 30-second walk away.
She attended the local school and
bought her family home off a dinner lady who was selling up 20 years ago. They completed the deal off-market.
Her sister now lives in Orchard Cottage, although her children can’t afford to move back. “As people have passed away, the houses haven’t been able to be passed to the next generation,” she says. “But those who have moved in have kept them nice.”
There have been a few new-builds around the edges of Turville but all in keeping with the look and feel of its original buildings.
And they certainly have not kept away visitors. On a cold January weekday morning, you’re more likely to run into tourists than residents. In the summer, it heaves with people looking for a quintessential English village.
Felicity Fearnley, 34, an NHS physiotherapist, and her husband moved to Hambleden, the next village, six years ago after renting in Henley. Her morning routine is to drop off her little one at the nursery in Turville before taking a quick stroll around the village.
She says there is a lovely community across the valley and her family are unlikely to leave thanks to the open space and ease of getting to London.
Nowhere is the strong community spirit more obvious than Hambleden. Watched over by Hambleden Manor, which was sold by Lady Hambleden in 2011 after her husband Viscount Hambleden died. She now lives in a more modest property in the centre of the village that is known for being the heart of the community.
Sam Webb moved to the village 19 years ago from Notting Hill and has not looked back. First joining the area as a renter, she bought her house off her old landlord. When she first moved she said it was like a timewarp with no mobiles or phone signal. While the village has moved on, it has resisted street lights or yellow lines – making parking a nightmare.
Her boyfriend, Ronnie Baird, a tree and landscape gardener in his 70s, has lived most of his life in the village and owned a property next to his mother’s on the village green. His mother bought her cottage for £20,000 and sold it recently for £1.3m.
Currently Janet’s Cottage, in the village beside the Thames, is listed for £1.25m. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and overlooks an area of outstanding natural beauty. In fact, most of the village does. The area is also protected by the National Trust and as a result there are restrictions on what can be built and modified.
But it has helped to retain some of the village’s history and quirks.
Hidden away, the village remained a relatively well kept secret until the pandemic. “In lockdown, social media went mad, saying get the train from London and go for a walk to discover this village. Chris Evans even gave a shout- out to the village shop on the radio,” says Webb.
Lynnie Bradford, who runs the local garage with her husband agrees: “There were hundreds of people visiting in lockdown.”
Buckinghamshire