Country Houses: When selling, feels like dating London: Delivering exceptional customer service
New Homes: Technology brings certainty to self-build
Might local economies once again drive local property markets?
Swipe right?
When buyers with dependent sales make offers for your house, should those advances be entertained, or should you, so to speak, ‘swipe left’?
Most aspects of the current market are highly encouraging. Mortgage approvals are well above average and interest rates continue to nudge downwards. The economy remains stable, if dull. Better still, more country house owner-occupiers than for several years are keen to move, resulting in big increases in both the number of houses and the number of buyers, coming to market. The sticking point is that, whereas the extremes of the 2022 market saw an abundance of buyers able
to move fast, today, most would-be country house buyers also have a house to sell. Some have agreed their own sale, some haven’t and, with others, it’s hard to tell. A surprising number expect exclusivity with zero ability to commit, while a few are far more attractive than they realise. For owners weighing a mix of hard facts and personal judgement, it can all feel a little like the dating game. So, when faced with an offer, how do you identify whether your would-be buyer is a dreamer, dilettante, or the real deal?
£3,500,000
£2,400,000
Published by Jackson-Stops since 1997, the UK Market Review is a concise overview, drawn from insights and data from some 40 offices across the London and Country House markets, plus national statistics. UK MARKET REVIEW NUMBER 57
Front Cover: West Sussex
£2,500,000 guide, (Midhurst)
Main: Suffolk
guide, (Ipswich)
Left: Kent
guide, (Sevenoaks)
THE DREAMER
Having fallen in love with your property, the dreamer enthusiastically offers the asking price, agrees to any special terms suggested (“Yes, of course we’ll employ your gardener and allow the Scouts to use the paddock”) and wants to move, whenever you want to. Unfortunately, the dreamer also needs to sell a property at a wholly unrealistic price, so it’s never going to happen.
Action: Have your agent break this news, gently, and await the reaction. Sometimes, they wake up and decide to do what it takes, to follow their heart.
THE DILETTANTE
The dilettante is that rare thing in the current market – a footloose, cash buyer. Unfortunately though, he (and it tends to
be a ‘he’), comes with a classic red flag: the commitment problem. He wants a low price but, even when he gets it, worries about missing out on an even better deal, somewhere else – so he keeps looking. Having engaged solicitors with you, there is a fair risk he’ll later be seduced by another, and leave you in the lurch.
Action: Tell your agent to investigate thoroughly, bargain intelligently (don’t look too keen) and, IF a price can be agreed, make it conditional on steady progress to a specified exchange date. Watch closely.
THE REAL DEAL
These buyers have a buyer for their current house who is keen and ready to proceed (mortgage offer in place, survey and searches done). They know what they can afford,
Top: Somerset
£1,950,000 guide, (Taunton)
Bottom: Cheshire
£6,500,000 guide, (Alderley Edge)
Right: Surrey
£1,750,000 guide, (Dorking)
Far Right: Surrey
£1,595,000 guide, (Woking)
Bottom: Essex
£2,500,000 guide, (Colchester)
so their offer is credible AND they have a buyer pushing them. Such buyers often complete faster than cash buyers under no such pressure.
Action: Tell your agent to verify their position and then, all being well, to make a deal at the best price and get the paperwork started. This courtship should go all the way
These are of course, stereotypes within a varied field but, regardless of your
buyer’s position, common themes are the need for plentiful, verified information and for transparency on any pre-contract arrangement. Plus, of course, to be ready yourself, for when a good match arises. That way, whatever you agree, everyone should feel ok, whatever the outcome. This can matter because, in house sales as well as dating, it’s not unusual for parties who flirted and split, to get back together again.
LONDON MARKET COMMENT
London’s local experts
Delivering exceptional customer service in a thriving market
The first half of the year has seen a very busy market, as London continues to attract buyers and tenants looking for a safe place to invest. The summer months present an exciting opportunity for sellers and landlords, with the demand to live in the capital reaching a record high. The number of people looking through us for their next home is increasing yearly; in London alone, we arrange thousands of viewings per month. London remains an exciting place to live and an attractive long-term investment, and buyers and tenants are searching for high-quality property in the best locations. This, combined with our proactive approach, means that we are regularly receiving exceptional offers, which we expect to continue throughout the summer.
Harry Buchanan, Pimlico Sales Director, says, “The sales market has been particularly active, with sellers and buyers wanting to press on with their moves. There is more property on the market, helping to satisfy the high buyer demand, which is why we have agreed 40% more sales than this time last year.”
Jackson-Stops continues to deliver a firstclass service, forming lasting relationships with sellers and landlords built on trust. With offices positioned in the desirable locations of Mayfair and Pimlico in prime central London, and Teddington, Wimbledon and Weybridge in Greater London, our core values remain unchanged. Expert teams that understand the local market and the needs of their clients. Today, over 70 per cent of business comes from recommendations and referrals, with customers coming back again and again.
Left: Alderney Street £2,700,000 guide, (Pimlico)
The professionalism of our colleagues and their expertise is the reason why JacksonStops is the go-to agent when it comes to selling or letting London property. Sellers and landlords are reassured by our presence on the high street and the knowledge that our teams visit every home to ensure we deliver the very best service. Jackson-Stops makes no excuse for taking a traditional approach to estate agency. We spend on average over 200 hours working on a successful transaction, so we're confident we can get the best price for our clients. Our proactive approach to generating viewings by speaking to our London-wide database ensures we consistently deliver the best results.
Jackson-Stops works with thousands of customers at one time, from UK-based sellers and landlords to international clients looking to relocate. We support our landlords by finding first-rate tenants, largely corporate or professionals, looking for longer-term tenancies. Alex McConnell, Pimlico Lettings Director, adds, “We recently re-let an offmarket property on St. George’s Square to a corporate tenant, which achieved a rental price increase of 42% compared to the previous tenancy.” Our primary aim is to deliver the best results for our landlords to ensure we never have empty homes. Most properties we look after are managed, as landlords trust us to care for their assets
£2,650,000 guide, (Walton-on-Thames)
and keep them in prime condition. These managed homes receive the attention of our dedicated Property Managers, who are never more than 15 minutes away from the properties in their portfolio.
Customer feedback is essential to the business, as we know that our clients have a choice of who they partner with. We are proud to have received thousands of Google reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars, a testament to the hard work of dedicated colleagues. This makes it clear to our clients how well their local office performs, as our talented teams strive to deliver an excellent customer journey and superior results every time. We work with the
sentiment that nothing is too much trouble, and our clients and customers should never have to ask twice.
This year so far has been busy for both sales and lettings, with no signs of this slowing down, there is plenty of confidence in the London market. The summer months present a window of opportunity when landlords traditionally achieve the highest rents and sellers receive the most interest. So, if you are curious about the value of your home or are considering a move, our advice is do not wait. Our local experts will be delighted to assist and are ready to provide professional advice tailored to your needs.
£12,328pcm, (Westminster)
Below Left: Queensmere Road
£7,000pcm, (Wimbledon)
Below Right: Michelham Gardens
£1,350,000 guide, (Teddington)
Left: Ashley Gardens
NEW HOMES & DEVELOPMENTS
Promised Land
Bespoke self-build design with predictable costs and timing, available now. Really?
At any one time, we offer dozens of plots suitable for an individual new home. Few house-hunters though, consider self-build (ie commissioned by the intended occupants) which account for just 7% of all new homes built each year in the UK and even less in England. This is tiny: across the EU, 40% is common. ‘Grand Designs’ must be partly to blame. Perhaps to bring some drama, or even to reduce envy, the TV show has highlighted how often bespoke projects exceed limits for time, budget and personal stress. Pioneers of up-market system building, such as Huf
Haus, have long protested that prefabricated, modular construction overcomes such obstacles. Self-build is so much more popular on the continent, they argue, because there, modular, ‘kit construction’ is the norm.
Modular homes are built using advanced technologies in warm, dry factories, so weather rarely causes delay. Quality is consistent, monitored and demonstrable, and precise schedules of materials and technical data readily available. Thus costs can be fixed and planning and building regulations satisfied efficiently. Despite all of this, in the UK, off-the-shelf designs have met
Top: Northamptonshire
£1,300,000 guide, (Oundle)
Completed & ready for occupation.
Right: Huf Haus previously sold by the Cornwall office.
with continued resistance, perhaps because significant customisations have, historically, involved a high degree of extra time and money. This has now changed dramatically.
DIGITAL TWINNING + AI
The catalyst for transformation has been the combining of ‘digital twin’ engineering software with AI. Twinning software creates a digital model of your proposed house, allowing design engineers to test processes such as airflows and heat losses, refine specifications and itemise materials required. With AI, their software can work much, much faster, enabling more experimentation, with greater variations, on any given theme. Thus modular house companies are now offering a far more bespoke home – varying everything from layout and window sizes, to finishes –while maintaining the fixed-price certainty and efficiency that define modern modular construction.
GROWING CHOICE OF SUPPLIERS
Credit must be given to the aforementioned Huf Haus for leading the way here. Having sold many of them, we know that they continue to be popular in the resale market. Others, though, are entering the fray, bringing a broader choice of suppliers, styles and, most importantly, budget. Thus while high-end, finished build costs often exceed £4,000 per square metre (£800,000 for a 200sqm / 2,150 sq ft house), others are offering attractive homes at a third of that. Some also offer literally self-build starter homes (delivered as a kit for you to build on a prepared site), from under £100,000.
In May this year, the government announced new proposals to hasten the granting of planning permission for smaller developments, especially those of fewer than ten homes. This might encourage more owners of potential building plots, such as home owners with large gardens, to consider exploring that potential: we are seeing initial signs of this. It is possible – and indeed our hope – that new design technologies, greater acceptance of modular construction and smoother planning, will generate a significant increase in the provision of swiftly-built, good quality housing, tailored to the needs of the very people who will live in it. To have a home of your own, is a precious thing. To have one you have commissioned and, in no small part, designed, is, as those of our clients who do take the plunge attest, to come home to a very special place indeed.
Top: Essex £1,000,000 guide (Colchester) 2.25 acres. Lapsed planning for redevelopment.
Below: Suffolk £375,000 guide, (Bury St Edmunds) 0.75 acre plot with planning consent. (Computer generated image)
SMALL SITE ‘FAST TRACK’ PLANNING PROMISE
EXAMPLES OF UK MODULAR CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES
Facit: facit-homes.com
Huf Haus: huf-haus.com
Scandia Hus: scandia-hus.co.uk
Trident: tridentmodular.com
NB: Please note that Jackson-Stops is not affiliated with, and cannot endorse, any of these companies.
POSITIVE CONSENSUS WITH A US WRINKLE
Good news for homeowners and buyers: virtually every major forecast anticipates continued cuts from the current Bank of England base rate of 4.25%. Debates focus only on the extent. Even then, all serious discussions, especially following every UK economic update, are about the minutiae: will there be two cuts of 0.25% by the year end, or three?
This consensus has fuelled confidence in the housing market amongst lenders and buyers alike, helping to maintain broad stability. The recent European Central Bank cut to 2% has, if anything, reinforced this, though it also highlights an international picture in which the UK, unusually, has a distinctive position.
US INFLUENCE
The centrality of the dollar to the world economy is such that its interest rate inevitably affects every other currency: UK and ECB rates have tended, with a significant delay, to move in step. US government actions have changed this. At the time of writing, sterling has a base rate below the dollar but more than double the euro, as the EU acts on worries about the effects of US disruption. Ironically, the US Federal Reserve has been holding rates for, it says, the same reason.
The UK’s position, politically and in terms of trade, is quite distinct from both. Hence its interest rates are likely to continue to follow a subtly different path – though ultimately, the dollar’s weight will prevail.
For those watching interest rates, the message is thus essentially reassuring: rates will carry on falling, slowly and predictably. The only caveat must be: watch the Fed.
For independent mortgage advice, contact Private Finance on 0800 980 8777 or at jacksonstops@privatefinance.co.uk. www.privatefinance.co.uk
Cornwall £345,000 (Cornwall). 0.25 acres with planning consent. (Computer generated image)
Cheshire £495,000 (Chester). 5 acres. No planning consent.
Kent £450,000 (Sevenoaks). 0.7 acres. No planning consent.
Devon excess £180,000 (Exeter). 6 acres. No planning consent.
THE BIG PICTURE
Relocalisation
Might local economies once again become the main driver of local property markets?
Over the last 15 or so years, the private rental sector and overseas buyers have, directly and via city centre investments, pumped money into provincial housing markets. Local buyers found themselves competing for homes with landlords and with those moving to their area to take advantage of a price differential or, just as often, because they could not afford to buy in their home city. This is how the ‘ripple effect’, works. Prices have thus been as much a reflection
of the national economy and international events, as of the underlying local picture. Today, while demand from older buyers moving from the orbit of London and, to a lesser extent, Manchester & Leeds, continues to dominate the market in higher quality houses, there are indications that the influence of ‘outside money’ has passed its peak. There are also reasons to expect the gradual reassertion of regional economies and easing of housing shortages.
Above: Northamptonshire
£1,725,000 guide, (Northampton)
BARRIERS TO ENTRY
Over the last thirty years, the private rental sector has more than doubled in size to approaching five million homes today (20% of the total stock of homes). Overwhelmingly, the landlords have been new entrants, with portfolios of up to three properties. Also, for much of that period – especially 2005 to 2015 – overseas buyers were investing heavily in London, typically making up half of all prime central London purchases. This generated a sustained ripple of equity out from the centre. Since then, stamp duty increases designed to deter landlords and overseas buyers have proved effective, while tax and regulatory increases have made small rental portfolios increasingly unprofitable. As a result, for the first time in many years,
regional first time buyers rarely now find themselves competing with anyone, other than other first time buyers.
NOT QUITE SO DOMINANT
London and the South East still account for almost 40% of UK GDP. That said, it is notable that a growing number of the industries centred there - such as fintech and e-commerce - create jobs right across the country. Others, such as life sciences and AI/digital technology have hubs in several major cities and the growth in university education has proved a major boon to many cities and regions. Renewable energy – one of the biggest in terms of jobs created at over 250,000 – exists primarily across the North East, East Anglia, Scotland and Wales.
Top: Bedfordshire
£1,750,000 guide, (Woburn)
Right: Norfolk
£2,750,000 guide, (Burnham Market)
Collectively, these growing industries give hope that economic progress will, over the coming decades, be significantly more widely-spread.
GENERATIONAL EFFECT
The number of homes changing hands each year has been subdued since the start of 2008 (see table below). At first glance, this looks like a direct result of the banking collapse and the uncertain years that followed. It is likely though that another, demographic factor, is also at play here.
By 2008, the great majority of the post-WWII ‘baby boom’ generation were in a home they
had no reason to leave. Adults tend to move quite often in their twenties and thirties.By 2008 though, all ‘boomers’ were over 40 and some over 60. If they were in a home they liked, why move – then or, indeed, now?
PROPORTION OF ALL DWELLINGS SOLD EACH YEAR
The average proportion of properties changing hands each year since the start of 2008 has been 37% lower than from 1995 to 2007 inclusive. This equates to an average of over 400,000 fewer transactions each year. Generational 'stage of life' demographic patterns, as well as economic ones, are probably a factor in this.
Source: Land Registry / Jackson-Stops
As they age, however, the bulge in demand created when this generation was born 70 or so years ago, inevitably creates a corresponding bulge in supply, as they reach the end of their lives. Between them, owner-occupiers over 65 account for over five million of England’s stock of nearly 25 million homes, including some 750,000 by those over 85. Making a few informed guesses about mortality rates, the passing away of older home owners should see an extra 230,000 or so homes per year come to market over the next ten years alone. This is more than the total number of new homes built each year for the last decade – which is just as well as, despite the doubtless sincere attempts by the current government to increase the annual rate of housebuilding, history suggests (see table right) that, unless backed by major, publicly-funded incentives, its wishes are not in the driving seat here.
Left: Cheshire
£2,500,000 guide, (Chester)
Above: Gloucestershire
£3,000,000 guide, (Chipping Campden)
Right: Devon
£1,400,000 guide, (Exeter)
There are then, good reasons to suppose that, over the coming decade and more, regional supply of housing will slowly improve. Just as significantly, perhaps more, demand for that housing should be driven more by the local economy and demographics of each region and less by a city, or even a country, far away. Which sounds like a good thing.
ANNUAL CHANGE IN THE NUMBER OF SALES, EXISTING HOMES AND NEW BUILD, INDEXED FOR COMPARISON (2006 = 100)
Indexing the annual change shows how closely the number of houses built and sold each year tracks the main market, not underlying need. The only time it has bucked that market – 2015 to 2019 incl. – was a period of especially intense government intervention with Help to Buy, stamp duty relief and the peak of New Homes Bonus payments to local authorities.
Source: Land Registry / Jackson-Stops
Lady Heywood grew up sailing the world for almost 10 years. Her book, “Wavewalker”, tells that story, and is due to become a miniseries staring James Norton. Today she is the COO of Exor and Executive Chair of CNH and Iveco and on the boards of Louboutin and The Economist. Her other books include the biography of her late husband, the Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood, who worked with four UK prime ministers.
HOME
MY HOME IS WAVEWALKER
By Suzanne Heywood CBE
When people ask me where home is, my answer is: a boat that no longer exists.
When I was six, my father said he wanted to sail around the world, recreating Captain Cook’s third voyage. I would have to leave everything behind –my friends, my beloved dog Rusty and my dolls house – but they would all be waiting for me back in England.
But that wasn’t what happened.
We set sail on Wavewalker when I was seven. On board was my mother, father, younger brother, Jon, me and three crew. We sailed down to South America and across the Southern Atlantic Ocean to South Africa.
PROPERTY EXPERTS SINCE 1910
From South Africa we set sail for Australia across the fearsome Indian Ocean. Within a few days we encountered a violent storm. The waves built up until a huge wall of water reared up behind the boat and crashed through the deck. I was standing down below in the galley (kitchen) and was flung against the ceiling and hull, fracturing my skull and breaking my nose.
We almost died. In fact, I’m still surprised we
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didn’t. We would certainly have sunk had we not found a tiny atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean: Isle Amsterdam. There we also found a doctor who operated on my head, conducting seven operations to relieve the swelling pressing down on my brain, though sadly without access to anaesthetic. Many things changed for me from that point. I no longer felt secure on the ocean, or sure that my father could captain us safely. But he was undeterred. After spending a year repairing the boat in Australia, we continued sailing, and I gradually realised he had no intention of stopping. He no longer talked about coming back to England. Instead, as the years went by, Wavewalker became both my home and my prison, a world in which it was impossible to have friendships or go to school. After ten years at sea, I eventually escaped. But despite everything, Wavewalker remains my home, because she carried me in her belly across many oceans and through many storms. Many years later, I went searching for her back in Fiji. I didn’t find Wavewalker, though I did find her compass: a little bit of home that will stay with me forever.
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