The average asking price of the 360 properties currently marketed for sale in Chichester is £351,253, according to home.co.uk. That may seem high compared to the UK average, but it’s actually 15% lower than a year ago! Back then the average property in Chichester was marketed for sale at £415,183.
Unfortunately there hasn’t actually been a sharp drop in the sold prices that would help to pave the way for a new era of first-time buyers. In fact, property prices in Chichester are up 4.5% compared to a year ago, according to the Land Registry. Instead it is the size and type of property that is available on the market that has changed i.e. there are more smaller and cheaper properties currently on the market, thus lowering the average figure.
This is evident in that 49% of the properties currently for sale have one or two bedrooms, compared to just 38% a year ago. A lot of this has been brought about by an influx of flats, with 33% more apartments available than a year ago.
It seems therefore that first-time buyers looking at starter homes have more to choose from than 12 months ago. Unfortunately, it is this end of the market that has seen the greatest increase in asking prices; the two bedroom properties are 10% more expensive than a year ago and the one bedroom properties are 20% more expensive!
There appears to have been a concertina effect in Chichester’s property market, whereby property prices are increasing on the cheapest homes but decreasing higher up the chain. I suspect this has something to do with the various tax and stamp duty changes that have come into effect over the past few years, which are almost exclusively aimed at helping those on the bottom rungs of the ladder and penalising those towards the top.
Here’s a final thought on the matter though; were you pleased to see that alarming title or somewhat shocked? Because it seems to me that when house prices are rising (as we’ve seen during the past few years) the media says what a travesty this is and that something needs to be done to lower them. And yet when house prices are falling (like in 2008/09) the media says what a travesty this is and that something needs to be done to right them!
