HOUSING MARKET
Last week I was speaking to an ex-colleague who now ‘earns a living’ selling houses in Harrogate. In mid conversation I heard his mobile ring tone go off – he bellowed loudly with excitement and cut me off to take the other call!
He e-mailed me today apologising for his curtness and explained that he was sweating on a deal which it now transpires has collapsed – a bit like his general and usually good-humoured demeanour. He went on to say that his practice needed three completions a week to break even. Since the turn of the year he is averaging one a week but nothing for the last three weeks – grim times!
In the current housing market, everyone has their own bad news/bad luck stories. Whilst some correction was needed within an over heated market, the last six months have been very difficult to bear for those earning a living from building and trading houses and apartments.
House builders, both the national and regional players, are proceeding with either very extreme caution or are effectively stood still. Probably the biggest worry right now is that no one (from Alistair Darling downwards….) can predict with any shred of confidence when the market will start to regroup and recover.
Timing, as they say – is everything and the timing of this down turn is bad news for Derby city centre’s regeneration strategy.
This is the market that the city living boom of the 2000’s effectively passed by. Small comfort, but at least we don’t have hundreds and hundreds of empty flats and apartments, driving confidence down further.
A number of sites have indeed changed hands in the last five years or so, some at values effectively inflated, more in hope of anticipated jam tomorrow. Some of the developers “caught a cold”, some flipped the use back into commercial, others lie dormant.
Substantial numbers of new houses and apartments are very much at the heart of Derby Cityscape’s plans to reinvigorate North Riverside (Derwent Street/Stuart Street/ Exeter Street) and the Castleward area between Westfield and the station.
But with a combination of what is virtually a virgin, untried market place, allied to the worst trading conditions for years, this looks a very tough challenge.
Are there any positive signs at all? Well, the lettings market is just about bearing up, but given the lack of centrally located stock, this confidence is best described as incidental and fragile.
The most frightening statistic I have seen recently describes how one in three repossessions across the UK involved apartments, yet flats and apartments only account for 5% of the total housing market.
These are very difficult times, indeed; let us hope that the confidence that is still evident in the commercial market will fuel the development of the some of the office schemes planned and proposed, at least creating an occupier market for the city centre.
