What sort of property is selling in Southampton?

With 98,254 properties in Southampton, our City attracts property hunters seeking a home. Luckily, just about every accommodation preference can be catered for here, from highly desirable detached houses on the Northern areas of Bassett  and Chilworth which are perfect for families, popular 1930’s bay front semis houses, imposing late Victorian terraced houses and modern luxury apartments dotted around the City. But with newspapers giving mixed messages on what is exactly happening in the City, let us have a look at what has happened over the last 12 months, in particular, what type of property is actually selling.

Between August 2013 and August 2014, 3,471 of the 98,254 Southampton properties sold and changed hands. The best performing type of property was surprisingly the terraced house. With an average sale price of £172,948; over 884 of them sold, representing 25.4% of the property sold in Southampton (which when you consider only 21.2% of Southampton property is terraced, this means terraced houses have done well). In very close second are detached houses. They represented 16.9% of the sales but detached houses only make up 13.2% of the property - again good news for all detached house owners.

Of the 25,547 semi detached houses in Southampton, 861 changed hands in the year, showing that whilst 26% of property in Southampton is semi detached, they only, but very respectably represented 24.8% of the sales. However, it is the flats/apartments that seem to have performed the worst. Whilst there are 37,987 apartments in Southampton (representing 38.6% of the housing stock), only 1,139changed hands in the year, representing only 32.8% of the sales.

What does this mean for the property owners of Southampton? It means that there is a two tone property market place in Southampton. Most homeowners start with a terraced, aspire to move to semi detached houses, then as finances allow, they move to a detached property. The majority of apartments, especially in the City Centre, were purchased by landlords to rent out to tenants, so they have no need/want to trade up on the property ladder.  

There are a small number of homeowners who are still in negative equity. In some cases, property values of some Southampton apartments sold at the height of the 2007 boom are still 5% to 10% lower than what was paid for them in that 2007 boom. However, this is the exception as on average, general Southampton property values are now 7% higher than the 2007 property boom.  We are seeing some good purchases by landlords and if you look hard enough, you may chance upon a "hidden property gem" in the most unlikely of places.