The North South Housing Divide

The North South Housing Divide

The North South divide of Britain's housing market has been commented upon for decades but since the economic downturn the stark difference between the two has never been so apparent. To actually sense how different the two ends of the country actually are you only have to take two examples from each to notice the divide.

One single mother had her Bingley flat in West Yorkshire on the market back in October. She had lived there for six years and had initially put in on the market back in the summer of 2009. She had used different estate agents to try and sell her property for her but she had only had a handful of viewings and certainly no offers. She describes the flat as a typical first time buyer's home but these are the exact people who are struggling to get a mortgage in today's climate. She also adds that unemployment is bad in her area due to the job losses at the Bradford and Bingley bank where one sixth of the work force was laid off. She explains that people used to come to Bingley to buy a home because it was cheaper than buying in nearby Leeds but since the downturn the number of flats in Leeds have dropped in price such a great deal since 2007 that they are the first choice for buyers. Her home is near a railway station and was priced at just 110,000 but she still could not sell. She feels that she has no choice but to rent out her flat until the market picks up and rent a house nearby with a garden for her and her daughter.

Down South is a very different story. One lady, a fund manager from London, tried to market her home online at first with not much success. Her one bedroom apartment was situated near Angle Islington and so she decided to go down the more conventional route and use an estate agent. They sold her apartment to the first person who viewed it and for the asking price. She wants to move to Sevenoaks in Kent and has a budget of between 650,000 and 800,000 depending on whether the property needs work or not. However having now sold her property she is struggling to find somewhere to buy because the housing market in the South is low on stock.

Agents in the south of the country say that the highly sought after properties rarely come on the market and so when they people tend to offer over the asking price to clinch the deal. Other places in the south are experiencing the same problem. 2010 saw considerable increases in the number of house sales, but this was just in London and the South-East benefits from good commuter links.

So the North South divide is clear and with spending cuts coming into force agents predict that the divide is only going to get worse. The South of the country is far less reliant on public sector jobs than the North and because house prices are far higher in the South people have built up a lot of equity in their homes. As a result they have a distinct advantage over those in the North.

The coalition Government talks about us being all in this together but in regards to the housing market many of us realise that when the austerity measures really begin, it will be those in the North which will suffer the most.

http://www.uklandforsale.org

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