Looking at the newspapers with their doom and gloom headlines, you would think that the Melksham property market (and the British property market) would be on its knees.
Yet ring some Melksham estate agents for a viewing or free valuation, and if you can get an appointment within a week to ten days, you are doing well! British properties continue to sell in good numbers.

In July and August 2022, sales have been agreed on an average of 25,476 UK properties per week.

Interesting when compared to the averages of 27,351 sales agreed per week in 2021 and 26,382 sales agreed per week, year to date in 2022.
So why is the Melksham property market defying all expectations?
It is because there is an absolute shortage of properties to buy on the books of Melksham estate agents, meaning Melksham house prices are being kept buoyant (as demand exceeds supply).

Today, there are 94 properties available to buy in Melksham. Roll the clock back to October 2007, the month before the last house price crash, and it was 338.

That’s 72% fewer properties to buy today in Melksham than the month before the property crash.
Notwithstanding suggestions that the Bank of England’s higher interest rates would peter out British house price growth, the continued limited supply of properties coming onto the market has helped Melksham house prices climb.

Melksham house prices are 12.2% higher today than a year ago.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that the insane demand for property has started to ease, and supply is increasing, which means that the direction of the Melksham housing market will begin to change in the coming months.
This can be seen in several ways.
Back in January and February (2022), 8,094 UK properties per week were reducing their asking prices, whilst this July and August that had risen to an average of 13,115 UK properties per week. This is significant as some ‘optimistic’ homeowners who placed their properties on the market in the spring and early summer have had to reduce their ‘optimistic’ asking prices to attract buyers.
Also, the number of UK house sales falling through (i.e., when the sale is agreed yet the sale falls through before the legal paperwork is completed) is starting to creep upwards from an average of 5,558 properties a week in the spring of 2022 to 6,854 per week in July and August 2022.
Melksham house prices have risen over recent times; the latest figures are based on what was selling in the late winter/early spring of this year and subsequently completing the sale in the early summer.

The prices obtained by the estate agents on properties achieving a sale in Melksham today (i.e. in the autumn of 2022) are slightly lower than what was obtained nine months ago. This means the house statistics published in early spring 2023 will slightly reduce. Nothing to worry about – I want to give you a heads up and not to be concerned. The simple fact is …

We are returning to a more normal Melksham housing market this autumn, compared to the crazy last 30 months since the end of lockdown one.

With UK inflation standing at 9.9%, this brings an interesting scenario for Melksham property values.

Reducing ‘real’ wages will hit first-time buyers and existing homeowners’ disposable income, while the same high inflation will make the Bank of England increase interest rates.

These things will significantly reduce homebuyers’ capacity to afford their mortgages as the fewer people who can take out a mortgage; the fewer buyers will buy homes.

The Bank of England base rate currently stands at 2.25%, yet forecasts suggest it could end the year between 2.75% and 3%. Yet let us not forget the long-term average over the last 50 years has been between 7.1% and 7.2%, and many mature Melksham homeowners will remember Bank of England Base Rates of 17% in 1979, so these sorts of increases are still off a low base.

During these autumn months though, the lack of properties on the market and available to buy still support Melksham house prices. The newspapers compete for attention and use clickbait titles to generate more interest in the publications.

The simple fact is that unless something seismically happens in the world to change things materially, the Melksham and British property markets will continue to harden slowly and will face some different challenges compared to the last 30 months, but fundamentally Melksham house prices will remain broadly neutral over the next 12 to 18 months.

These are my thoughts; what are yours?

Corsham OAP retirees have to make tough choices with the onset of the cost-of-living crisis.

Growing inflation, unpredictable financial markets and the high cost of living mean many former retired Corsham people are returning to work in what has been dubbed the ‘great unretirement’. Some are even bringing forward their downsizing house move.

Looking at the changing job market, July saw the most significant month-on-month rise in OAPs working since records began in the 1990s when 1 in 23 of all the UK’s OAPs went back into employment.

That now means …

291 Corsham over 65s are in gainful employment (i.e. 1 in 8 of them).

As a backdrop, the number of working 65-year-olds and above has been increasing since the mid-nineties when 125 Corsham OAPs were employed. Yet, July’s figures were the largest monthly jump on record by quite a distance.

Looking at the changing property market, I have been speaking to many Corsham OAP homeowners who are having to bring their downsizing plans forward several years to survive the cost-of-living crisis. The money generated from the downsizing will cover their housekeeping and massive energy bills.

So why would someone want to downsize? Mostly, their homes are too big for their needs as their children have flown the nest decades before. The government classifies a property as under-occupied if it has two or more spare bedrooms.

How big is the under-occupation issue in the UK?

Of the 4.52 million British homes owned by those aged 65 and over, 3.04 million have at least two spare bedrooms (i.e. under-occupied). Looking locally …

49,342 of the 82,337 Wiltshire OAPs have two or more spare bedrooms.

You might ask why this is important.

Well, to start, it’s holding back Corsham families that need the bedrooms and space these larger houses offer if the older occupants won’t move on. Also, these larger homes cost more to run in terms of energy bills and other things such as building insurance and council tax.

From October (even with the recent energy bill cap) it will cost on average £354 per month in gas and electricity alone for a large Corsham 4-bed detached home (where occupants are home all day).

So, why are there so many mature homeowners in their 70s, 80s and even 90s still living in houses that are too large for their day-to-day requirements? There are several reasons for this. One is the obvious emotional attachment to the family home they have often owned since the 1970s and 1980s. The second is to escape the hassle and costs of the house move, and finally, the small number of suitable Corsham properties for them to buy to attract them to make a move.

The growing energy bills have provoked many of those mature Corsham homeowners who maybe can’t or do not wish to get a job to re-evaluate their home life strategy. I am seeing an ever-increasing number of mature Corsham homeowners downsizing (or, as I prefer, rightsizing) to diminish their monthly expenditures.

So how much could mature Corsham homeowners gain by downsizing?
The numbers are intriguing when looking at the average difference between the sale price and the subsequent purchase price of the average downsized.

Corsham downsizers could unlock an average of £155,500 per household.

Not only will Corsham homeowners earn this lump of cash for their extended retirement, but they will also save themselves around £181 per month in lower energy bills, buildings insurance and council tax bills.

So, what are the options for mature Corsham homeowners?
Waiting 12 months to make a move might mean you are putting your Corsham home on the market as every other OAP homeowner puts their home on the market, meaning the dynamics of the local property market will probably be a lot different. Thus, the equity you release on the downsize could be much lower.
Yet some of you will be worried about finding your next home. Not to worry.

At our agency, we do things differently than many other Corsham estate agents. We can find you a buyer, then put everything on ice and go and find you a property to buy. We guarantee you won’t be made homeless if you or we can’t find another home for you to move to.

We call it peace of mind!

If you would like a chat about this, without any obligation, feel free to call Jaine on 01225 705650.

For the last few weeks, we have listened to the debates and hustings of Liz and Rishi. Between them, they have told us how they are going to stop building on the green belt, slash taxes, outbid each other on the number of refugees they are going to deport and push back against WOKE culture wars, but what are they doing for the 20 to 30-somethings of Corsham?

With the cost-of-living crisis beginning to hit, the 20 and 30-somethings of Corsham urgently need the help and support of the Government to help them get on the property ladder.

Dubbed ‘Generation Rent’ by the press, desperate to get on the property ladder, this is an open goal for any candidate to obtain more votes to become the next Prime Minister.

Yet only 16% of the c.200,000 Tory membership is aged 18 to 34 whilst 47% of members are aged between 55 and 74.

Therefore, it’s not a surprise that neither Liz nor Rishi aren’t speaking daily about the cost of petrol for the daily commute, rising childcare fees or the lack of opportunities for first-time buyers to purchase their own properties.

(For balance, 16% of Labour’s members are 18 to 34, 20% for the Lib Dems and 16% for the SNP).

Everyone is feeling the effect on their household budgets with the rise in energy bills. Yet, it is the younger generation (i.e., Generation Rent) that are having to cope with the frenzy of rising energy costs the most.

Whilst increasing energy prices will affect all households across the country, younger (and less affluent) households are more prone to be disproportionately affected than those on the lowest incomes (i.e., Generation Rent).

In the financial year ending in 2020, the least well off 25% of households spent 5.59% on energy compared to 3.9% for the average UK household. With 2023 energy bills set to be triple those figures, energy bills for those in the lower quartile will rise to around 16.8% of their household budget.

And let’s look at the housing element of the ‘Generation Rent’ household budget.

The average rental of a Corsham property in the summer of 2020 was £1,010 PCM; by the summer of 2021, it was £1,119 PCM, and today, it is £1,198 PCM.

Overall, Corsham rents are 7.1% higher than a year ago and 18.7% higher than two years ago.

This is the fastest annual rate of rental growth since records began in 2006. This increase in rents isn’t standard. Before 2020, I would have expected to see this level of rent growth over a seven-to-ten-year period – not two years. Good news for Corsham landlords, yet not so for Corsham tenants.

Why have rents increased so much in Corsham?

It comes down to fewer rental properties and existing Corsham tenants not moving as much.

There are 54 fewer rental properties in Corsham than five years ago, leaving only 960 private rental properties in Corsham.

9 out of 10 rentals come onto the market because the existing tenant is moving. Yet, because there are fewer Corsham rental properties and the asking rents for those are much higher than their current home, many Corsham tenants are not moving, exasperating the issue even further.

Today, I looked on Rightmove, and there were only 5 properties available to rent. I would have expected that to be over double that pre-pandemic.

Neither candidate has been silent on the topic of homeownership for the young.

Rishi Sunak said he would stop building on the greenbelt. This, however, would not help Generation Rent massively.

Liz Truss has pledged to help more renters buy their first home by stating she will ensure tenant’s rental payments could be used as part of mortgage affordability assessments. This is important as the mortgage payments can be 10% to 20% lower than the rental payments.

Tied in with new relaxed mortgage affordability rules announced by the Bank of England in early August, this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction to help Generation Rent.

Truss also plans to scrap the red tape holding back housebuilding and give local populations more say on developments. However, when Boris Johnson suggested something similar a few years ago, the policy was quietly dropped after the Liberal Democrats used this against them resulting in the Tory’s resounding by-election defeat in 2021 in Chesham and Amersham.

So, by the end of the first week of September, we will know who the Prime Minister will be. Whoever gets the job has a gigantic task on their hands. I wish them luck and ask them not to forget the younger generation and their aspiration to be homeowners.

The total value of homes owned by Baby Boomers in Corsham alone is £894,514,246 – and two-thirds of the Corsham Millennials are set to inherit all that in the next few decades!

Could this be the answer to the housing crisis?

Could Corsham Millennials live it up for the next few decades, safe in the knowledge they will get a huge lump sum to pay off their debts and buy a house with what is left?

Before I look at that, which set of people in Corsham exactly are the Corsham Millennials or Corsham Baby Boomers?

Come to that, who are Generation Z, the Silent Generation or Generation X?

All these are phrases used for the different groups of people in their various life stages of our society.

So, splitting the groups down:

Silent Generation: Born 1945 and before (77 years old and above)
Baby Boomers: Born 1946 to 1964 (58 years old to 76 years old)
Generation X: Born 1965 to 1980 (42 years old to 55 years old)
Millennials: Born 1981 to 1995 (27 years old to 41 years old)
Generation Z: Born after 1996 (everyone under 26 years old)

Using data from the Census, my research shows there are …

2,122 households in Corsham owned by Corsham Baby Boomers and they are worth a combined value of £894,514,246.

The generation that will inherit those Corsham properties will be the millennials.

There are 1,318 millennials in Corsham.

After looking at the local demographics, homeownership statistics and current life expectancy, around two-thirds of those Corsham Millennials have parents who own those 2,122 Corsham properties, meaning each is in line for an inheritance of £1,017,527.18

Now that figure is just a simple average and a lot more than the value of many properties in Corsham. A lot of that is to do with the low number of millennials in Corsham (as a proportion of the overall population) and the high number of Baby Boomers compared to the national average. The inheritance figure is just to show the extent of the money tied up in Corsham property and what that could do for the younger generation.

Yet what about Corsham’s Silent Generation?

There are 1,862 homes in Corsham owned by the ‘Silent Generation’ and they are worth £784,913,066.

The issue for those who will inherit their parents’ homes is that there are far more Generation X people in Corsham than millennials.

Two thirds of the 2,809 Corsham Generation X will inherit £423,375.66 – still nothing to sniff at yet not as much as the millennials!

So, whilst the Corsham Millennials are less likely to own their own home compared to Generation X and so have done not as well in amassing their assets and savings, they are more likely to benefit from an inheritance boom in the years to come.

This is likely to be very comforting information for those Corsham Millennials, including some from humbler upbringings who historically would have been unlikely to receive an inheritance.

Nevertheless, inheritance is not the silver bullet that will get the millennials onto the Corsham housing ladder.

Nor will it deal with the increasing wealth inequalities in British society, as the inheritance they are likely to receive won’t be accessible when they are trying to buy their first Corsham home.

So before all you Corsham Millennials start running up your credit card bills, safe in the knowledge they will be paid for when your parents pass away in 20/30 years, over half of the females and around a third of men are going to have to pay for their nursing home fees.

Remarkably, I recently read 25% of people who must pay for their nursing home fees run out of money, and therefore have to rely on funding from the local authority

Therefore, if you are a Corsham Millennial, no inheritance will be left for you. It goes without saying, most Corsham parents want to give some inheritance to their children.

Yet if waiting until you pass away to help your children or even grandchildren with your legacy could be seen as too late, so what are the options?

One solution to help and fix the housing crisis in Corsham (and the UK as a whole) is if parents and grandparents, where they can, help financially with the deposit for a house whilst their children/grandchildren are in, say, their 20’s and early 30’s.

Buying a Corsham property is much cheaper than renting – I have shown it many times in these articles.

It’s not a case of not being able to afford the mortgage; the problem is raising the mortgage deposit (of 5% to 10%) for these Corsham Millennials.

Maybe families should be discussing the distribution of family wealth whilst everyone is alive (in the form of helping the family with house deposits) as opposed to waiting until the end, as it will make a massive difference to everyone in the short and long run.

And a final thought, your legacy will have a more significant impact, and you will be here to see it with your own eyes.

A win-win for everyone.

• “An apartment is over £100 grand and a flat under £100k”, said my friend.
• Joking aside, there is no difference, call it what you will, the humble apartment/flat has served Melksham well over the years.
• The average sale price of an apartment in Melksham in 2021 was £133,390, making it an excellent first-time buyer purchase and buy-to-let investment.
• In this article, I want to look at the apartment/flat in Melksham and how it could solve the county’s housing crisis.

The word ‘Apartment’ derives from the French word ‘Appartement’, which comes from the Italian form of the word, ‘Appartamento’. The core of that Italian word ‘appartare’ means ‘to separate’, as in ‘separate a building’.

The word comes from Roman times when housing costs were so expensive within the city walls of Rome. Savvy property owners split (or separated) their houses into what we know as apartments or flats today.

The word flat is derived from the Old Scottish/Old English word ‘flet’. The flet is the interior of the home. Some also think the phrase stuck as most flats are on one floor, and so by definition, the accommodation is on the flat (i.e., no stairs inside).

The country has an enduring housing shortage. Not enough homes are being built, and even though the Government is aspiring to build 300,000 new homes annually to match demand and keep costs of housing affordable, less than 250,000 were built in 2019, the best rate in the last decade.

And that is why some say the simple solution to Britain’s housing problem is building more apartments/flats.

The British population has been growing by more than half a million every year for the last twenty years. Yet just over 175,000 homes have been built annually.

One solution is building more apartments – and on the face of it, the facts stack up as they are cheaper to heat, the views are often unique and they use less land.

To look at what we do as a country with our apartments, it’s important to look at Europe to see how they live so that we can compare the percentages of flats/apartments lived in –

• Spain 66.1%
• Switzerland 63.1%
• Greece 59.2%
• Germany 56.3%
• Italy 53.1%
• EU average 46.2%
• Sweden 46.7%
• France 34.0%
• The United Kingdom 14.8%

Quite a stark difference, isn’t it!

Now let’s look at Melksham itself.

Of the 8,327 households in Melksham,
12.4% of them (1,032) are apartments / flats.

Even though only 1.2% of the country has residential property built on it (and an additional 3.5% are gardens), building houses is low-density land use. Is it sustainable in the long term to continue to build that way in Britain, a country with a similar population to France yet having less than half its landmass?

If we continue to build just over 5 in 6 new households as houses, surely sooner or later, the precious green belt around our towns and cities will have to go. And I know many of you will say use brownfield sites. Of course, there are brownfield sites, yet …

In the whole of the Wiltshire area, there are only 94 brownfield sites, totalling only 318.6 acres, which would only provide 3,607 houses – so not many!

The country needs a decent supply of homes for its growing and ageing population. Many of you will frown when it has been suggested, even if it’s for environmental reasons alone, most of these should be apartments/flats.

Don’t get me wrong, the love/hate relationship with the apartment/flat and the British is well-founded. Many apartments/flats in Britain are not suitable for happy family living. The high-rise ghetto council blocks built in the 1960s didn’t help with their poor communal areas, lack of maintenance and lifts that didn’t work.

Why do so many more Europeans live in apartments?

In mainland Europe, the apartments are larger. For example, in Germany, they are 974 sq ft; in Denmark, they are 1,452 sq. ft; in the UK, they are only 793 sq ft. Also, European apartment/flat owners have more storage areas, higher ceilings and better communal areas.

It is a vicious cycle. Poorly made small apartments make families side-step them, which makes new home builders construct apartments unsuitable for families, which means the situation worsens. This results in the British property market trying to expand our towns and cities outwards into the countryside with houses, rather than upwards into the sky.

I am not suggesting 20-storey high-rise tower blocks in Melksham for one second. Looking deeper into the information from Europe, most people live in low-rise three and four-storey purpose-built apartment blocks.

To begin with, these new apartments/flats need to be justly desirable for Melksham families and be seen as such by the local population. The building materials used, communal spaces, the building’s functionality, and design specifications must not only meet but exceed current building specs on houses, or planning permission should withhold.

Maybe the Government could incentivise builders to build apartments/flats instead of houses to improve the supply of quality apartments/flats with tax breaks?

Things will take decades to change, yet I thought it was appropriate to discuss the matter in such an environment as this.

These are my thoughts, what are yours?

When a potential buyer arrives at your house you want them to instantly fall in love with it. However, that won’t happen if your property has poor ‘Kerb Appeal’.

Here are 8 simple things you can do to make your home look more attractive from the outside:

Decorate Your Doors: Does your front or garage door look tired and need a lick of paint? Those are the first thing buyers will notice. A pretty entry will give people a great first impression.

Wash Your Windows: Wash all of your windows, inside and out, as this will give buyers a fresh feel as they walk through your home. Plus, if you have a good view or a lovely garden to look at, then clean windows will allow them to do that.

Pressure Wash Your Outdoor Surfaces: Pressure washing your outdoor surfaces is a quick and easy way of freshening up your house’s outdoor appearance. If you wash your driveway, garden path, your porch or decking then this will give your home a ‘like new’ feel.

Landscape Your Garden: Make sure your garden looks tidy. Cut your lawn, weed your flower beds, trim your trees or plant some nice flowers to make your garden look prettier. A tidy garden gives out a great first impression as it shows buyers you’ve taken care of it.

Gut Your Garage: We all use our garages as a dumping ground from time to time but when you’ve listed your home for sale then a clean out is required, otherwise it might put buyers off. They want to visualise what they can use the space for. Consider using a storage unit for a little while if you’ve items you just don’t want to get rid of.

Replace or Paint Your House Number: It’s amazing how many homeowners neglect their house number. Does yours need a lick of paint or can you get a new one made? A pretty house number will make your home stand out and give off the impression that you’re house proud.

Replace Your Welcome Mat: Buy a new welcome mat for your home as it’s one of the first things potential buyers will see just before they enter your house. You want to make people feel happy when they walk into your home, not left wondering what state the inside will be if your welcome mat is anything to go by.

Are All Exterior Lights Working? It’s easy to forget about outdoor bulbs that may have gone out. Have a quick sweep around your property and replace any bulbs that may have popped. Also, you might want to add some outdoor lighting to emphasis certain features of your property.

Just a few simple maintenance tasks can make a huge difference to whether your house looks attractive to buyers or not.

If you prepare your home in the right way to hit the market then you’ll help ensure your property will be sold quickly and for the best price possible.

Thinking of selling? Get in touch today for a FREE home valuation.

Helping you on your property Journey – Meet property and finance professionals and network with like minded people.

Date and time

Tue, 20 September 2022

17:00 – 20:00 BST

Location

Wellington Barn

Manor Farm

Calne

SN11 8PY

About this event

Are you building a property portfolio?

If you are and would like to benefit from the decades of experience our property and finance professionals have then this is the event for you.

You will have the opportunity to learn from and ask questions directly to property managers, sales agents, asset protection specialists, mortgage brokers, property developers, financial planners and accountants.

An Opportunity to Network!

There will be talks from our professionals followed by an opportunity to network with them and other like minded people in the beautiful settings of Wellington Barn in the Wiltshire Countryside.

Who is this Event For?

If you have a passion for property, are a seasoned property investor or are looking to get into property investing for the first time then this is the event for you.

Enjoy the relaxed environment whilst picking up lots of knowledge to help you on your journey.

The predicament of the Corsham 20 to 30 year olds who rent and their inability to get onto the housing ladder is often discussed in the press.

There are 4.43m properties in the UK that are still in the private rented sector (compared to 2.13m in 2002).

This group of people in their 20s and 30’s, who rent from a private landlord, are often called ‘Generation Rent’.

Yet would it surprise you that since 2017, the number of UK households in the private rented sector has reduced by 260,000 whilst the number of homeowners has increased by 1.1m?

In this article I want to talk about another set of people, not ‘Generation Rent’, but ‘Generation Stuck’.

Generation Stuck are our middle-aged and mature homeowners of Corsham. They are the generation that could be described as late ‘Baby Boomers’ (born in late 1950s and early 1960s) and the early ‘Gen X’ (born in the mid 1960s to early 1970s).

These 50 to 64 year old people feel stuck in their Corsham homes, and therefore I have nicknamed them ‘Generation Stuck’. Their inability to move could be holding back those younger Corsham ‘Generation Renters’.

So, let me look at the numbers involved.

In Corsham, there are 1,055 households, whose owners are aged between 50 and 64 years old and about to pay their mortgage off on property that is worth £444.7m.

There are an additional 1,067 mortgage free Corsham households, owned by 50 to 64 year olds, worth £449.79m, meaning …

Corsham ‘Baby Boomers’ and Corsham ‘Gen X’ are sitting
on £894.5m worth of Corsham property.

According to the Census, 47.8% of homes occupied by 50 to 64 year olds have two or more spare bedrooms.

This is backed up by the annual English Housing Survey that states nationally, 49% of properties occupied by these ‘Generation Stuck’ are ‘under-occupied’.

Under-occupied is categorised as having at least two spare bedrooms.

Looking at the statistics closer to home

57.9% of Wiltshire 50 to 64 year olds have two or more spare bedrooms, making it the 35th highest local authority in the country
(out of 348 local authorities).

The rising number of older Corsham homeowners who want to downsize their Corsham home are often held back by the lack of suitable housing options for older people and the difficulties of moving.

Lots of over 50 year old Corsham people cannot move home in the way that they would like, due to a lack of suitable housing options and so can find themselves ‘stuck’ in homes which are no longer suitable for them as they age.

Only 1 in 29 people over the age of 50 move home each year, compared to 1 in 15 for the rest of the population.

Helping mature Corsham homeowners (Generation Stuck) to downsize their homes at the right time will also allow younger Corsham people (Generation Rent) to find the Corsham family homes they need – meaning every generation wins, both young and old.

However, to ensure downsizing works, we need more choices for these “last-time-buyers”.

That means building more bungalows or more ground floor apartments suitable for the middle to older generation.

One way this could be done is by changing the planning rules to force builders to build these types of properties, whilst the other could be the changing of the stamp duty tax breaks for downsizers.

In this way, older Corsham people will be more able to move into homes which suit their specific needs, improve their quality of life whilst meeting their goals in life, all without them becoming detached from their friends and family locally in the Corsham area.

These are my thoughts, please let me know yours.

“Tell me what is happening to the Melksham property market”, asked the friend of a friend at a recent do I went to in Melksham (after finding out I was an agent in Melksham).

I always reply, “It depends if you are buying, selling or both”.

The Melksham property market is like a seesaw. For the last two years, it has been quite firmly in the realms of a 90% seller’s/10% buyer’s market.

However, unless you are a Melksham buy-to-let landlord, Melksham first-time buyer, or executors selling a deceased person’s estate, most home movers are both (i.e. they are both sellers and buyers).

So, what determines where we are on the seesaw of a seller’s market or a buyer’s market?

It comes down to simple supply and demand economics. i.e. the number of properties on the market versus the number of buyers in the market.

Like when someone sells goods or services, it’s the same with property. So, when we have a low supply of properties on the market and high demand for properties to move into (like we have had for the last two years since the end of lockdown one), house prices go up.

Melksham house prices are 14.4% higher than a year ago.

The other side of the coin was seen in the Credit Crunch years of 2008/9. Many people wanted to sell their houses in Melksham, yet the banks weren’t lending, so people couldn’t buy. This meant the supply of property on the market exceeded demand; hence Melksham house prices dropped by 16% to 19% in 18 months (depending on what type of property you were selling) as we had a 20% seller’s/80% buyer’s market.

Whilst demand and supply are the key driving force on the balance of the buyer/seller’s market seesaw, it is not the only influencer of the property market. The price band is also an essential determiner of house prices, albeit over the longer term.

To show this, initially, I will go back to 1995 to ascertain what has happened to average house prices over the long term in Melksham.

The average Melksham house price has risen from £74,876 in 1995 to £360,919 in 2021, a growth of 382%.

Interesting, when you compare that against the national figure of 407.2%. Also, looking at where our local authority stands against other areas, we are 200th out of 331 local authorities in England & Wales for house price growth.

It’s called the property ladder for an excellent reason, and the health of the whole Melksham property market is very dependent on those bottom rungs of that ladder.

Therefore, looking at the data for our local authority, paying particular attention to the lower end (in terms of price), some intriguing data comes to light. It is crucial as the lower end of the property market (in terms of price) is a good bellwether for the whole Melksham property market.

So, I looked at the following:-

1. Lower 10th Percentile of the Melksham housing market – i.e. the bottom 10% in terms of the value of properties sold – e.g. small apartments and ex-local authority properties in the less popular areas, which mainly attract buy-to-let landlords.
2. Lower Quartile of the Melksham housing market – i.e. the bottom 25% of Melksham property in terms of their value, e.g. first-time buyer homes and mid-market buy-to-let property.

… and if one looks at our figures for Melksham and the whole local authority, you can see the three parts (lowest 10%/lowest 25% and overall average) have performed quite similarly.

• The average value of a Melksham property sold in 1995 in the lower 10th percentile (i.e. the bottom 10% of the Melksham property market) was £37,000, and in 2021, it was £175,000, a growth of 373% (compared to the national average of 428.4%).
• The average value of a Melksham property sold in 1995 in the lower quartile (i.e. the bottom 25% of the Melksham property market) was £46,000, and in 2021, it was £225,000, a growth of 389.1% (compared to the national average of 417.7%).

Some of you might be asking yourself, what do all these different figures mean to Melksham homeowners, first-time buyers and landlords?

The overall average is roughly the same as the lower 10th percentile growth figures, yet the lower quartile is much higher. This means the middle to upper market in Melksham has not performed as well as the lower/middle end in terms of house price growth since 1995.

The thought I am trying to get across to every Melksham homeowner and buy-to-let landlord is that there isn’t just ‘one’ Melksham property market.

There are markets within markets – almost like a fly’s eye. It is essential not to look at just the headlines but delve deeper when considering what is really happening and not to just look at the overall averages.

As we enter the height of the summer, the Melksham property market seesaw has started to change ever so slightly, changing from the 90% seller’s/10% buyer’s market we have had in the last two years to more of a 70% seller’s/30% buyer’s market.

With that in mind, if you can spot trends before anyone else is aware of them you could find yourself some potential Melksham property bargains.

Your hall is the first room in the house viewers will see when they come to take a look around your property, so it’s important to create a good first impression.

It can be so easy to put a lot of effort into staging every other room in the house but forget about the main entrance into your home.

Ultimately, you want to wow potential buyers from the moment they set foot inside your property, so here are six tips to help you stage your hall just right and secure a buyer quickly:

Pack away coats, shoes & bags:

Don’t let viewers trip over jackets, bags or shoes you’ve left lying at your front door as this will leave them with the worst possible impression. Instead, pick everything up and store your personal belongings away. If you’re lacking storage space you can still keep them in the hall but on coat hooks or tidied away neatly in a hallway unit or organizer.

Get painting:

Painting your hall is one of the easiest and cheapest ways of transforming the room to make it feel more welcoming. If your hall has any walls that feature bold or loud colours then freshen it up with neutral colours and shades instead. You want your hallway to look open, bright, and fresh to create the best first impression you possibly can.

Add a mirror:

Mirrors are fantastic additions to any hallway and can really transform the space. By adding a mirror to your hall you will instantly add light to the room, making it appear brighter and bigger as well as adding a touch of style to it.

Check the front door:

Make sure your front door can open and close easily as well as lock and unlock easily. You want to create a feeling of safety and your front door is something a viewer might check themselves. Don’t be left red-faced if it doesn’t close or lock properly, so get this checked out and fixed as soon as possible if there are any issues.

Bring some life and a pop of colour:

Consider adding a hallway console table filled with chic accessories, such as a vase of fresh flowers, clock or candles. If this isn’t your thing, look at adding some potted plants to bring a bit of character and sense of comfort to your hall.

Make sure it smells nice:

A fresh smelling hall will instantly give your buyers a good impression of your house. Impress them when they first walk through the door by infusing the space with nice smells such as home baking, coffee, scented candles or wax melts or use diffusers or air fresheners to provide that clean and homely feeling.

A viewer can take only a few seconds to decide whether they wish to buy a house or not so it’s important to give them the best experience as soon as they set foot through your front door. Staging a hallway is crucial to making that first impression count.