Prices keep rising with Bedale area a hotspot
The annual House Price Index by Yorkshire-based property buying agents The Search Partnership has revealed a 7.9 per cent increase in house prices across Thirsk, Ripon, Boroughbridge, Harrogate, Wetherby and Bedale over the last year.
It is the highest price rise since the start of The Search Partnership House Price Index 11 years ago, which records the average price paid per square foot for property, as recorded by the Land Registry across those six key areas in North Yorkshire.
The largest price rises were seen in the villages surrounding Bedale, which were up 15.3 per cent, and in the villages close to Wetherby, up 11.9 per cent, with villages around Thirsk showing no growth and those around Harrogate rising by 3 per cent.
The last time average prices in these areas rose as much in a calendar year was during the recovery after the financial crash of 2008.
Toby Milbank, director of The Search Partnership, says “The main reason for these rises is that the housing market has a herd mentality. In any ‘normal’ year, without Covid, demand generally outstrips supply in Yorkshire and so prices in this normal 12-month period move upwards gently.
“Between November 2020 and March 2021, various levels of lockdown made buying houses difficult and reduced the amount of time the market was open for business.
“When the lockdown came to an end, the herd mentality was palpable, and with so much positivity and hype surrounding the marketplace, the fear of missing out meant competition for houses was rife.
“Estate agents’ books were full of houses marked ‘under offer’ and buyers were desperate to secure a house before they missed their opportunity, with prices rising considerably as a result.”
Fellow director at The Search Partnership, Tom Robinson, added: “The end of the Stamp
Duty holiday on June 30, 2021, further fuelled the flames and led to unprecedented numbers of transactions. Land Registry shows that the numbers of houses selling in North Yorkshire every month generally runs at between 500 and 1,000. Once the Covid restrictions came to an end, and with the added focus of the end of the Stamp Duty holiday, the average number of houses changing hands rose sharply to over 1,400 in June 2021.” Looking ahead,
The Search Partnership believes that the market will remain firm and Tom said: “With household income being put under pressure by higher living costs and with interest rate rises looking more likely, the lower end of the market may cool.
“However, for detached houses in the middle and upper end of the market, the number of buyers in the marketplace remains high and we expect a 4 per cent rise in house prices across North Yorkshire in 2022.” Rightmove’s asking price index shows Yorkshire prices rose by 6.2 per cent over the past month and 12.6 per cent year-on-year with average days to sell at 45.
It says that February normally sees a rise in asking prices from January, but this is the biggest monthly jump recorded by Rightmove in more than twenty years of reporting, and the annual rate of average UK asking price growth of 9.5 per cent is the highest recorded since September 2014.
This new record means that average asking prices have now risen by nearly £40,000 in the two years since the pandemic started, compared to just over £9,000 in the previous two years.