Property near racecourses
With the annual Cheltenham Race Festival starting today, we’ve got five properties to spend your winnings on that are located near to other racecourses in the UK.
Admittedly, you’d need to win big to afford these!
Cheltenham Racecourse,Cheltenham, Glos
1. £1,150,000, seven bedrooms, Pittville Crescent, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Average home value in Cheltenham: £243,465
Property for sale in Cheltenham
Thirsk Racecourse, Thirsk, North Yorkshire
2. £995,000 – 4 bedroom house, Bagby Grange, Thirsk, North Yorkshire
Average home value in Thirsk: £217,206
Property for sale in Thirsk
Sandown Racecourse, Esher, Surrey
3. £925,000 – 5 bedroom house Pelhams Walk, Esher, Surrey
Average home value in Esher: £670,495
Property for sale in Esher
Carlisle Racecourse, Carlisle, Cumbria
4. £690,000 4 bedroom St. Pauls Square, Carlisle, Cumbria
Average home value in Carlisle: £136,283
Property for sale in Carlisle
Exeter Racecourse, Exeter
5. £875,000 5 bedroom house Rockbeare, Exeter
Average home value in Exeter: £219,508
Property for sale in Exeter
Add comment March 16, 2010
Bradford most affordable property market in UK
Our latest research shows UK housing affordability is at its highest level since 2003.
Affordability rates have improved substantially over the past couple of years as a result of lower mortgage rates and falling house prices that have now begun to stabilise. We are at levels of affordability not seen in the UK housing market for almost seven years which potentially makes it good time to buy, especially if current low interest rates can be locked into to account for any rate increases that may happen later this year.
Overview:
- UK housing market affordability reaches seven-year high
- 58% of homes now affordable up from just 34% three years ago
- Property prices now more affordable than at any time since in 2003
- Average UK income earner can afford to buy 58% of UK properties
- Bradford most affordable market in UK, London least affordable
- Over the past 10 years, affordability levels reached their highest point in 2002 at 66%
- The current levels were last seen in 2003 when the affordability rate was 56%
Key results:
- Bradford – four out of five homes (82%) are affordable
- Hull second most affordable with 81% of homes now deemed affordable
- Stoke-on-Trent (80%), Birmingham (78%) and Coventry (78%)
- London least affordable housing market – less than one-third (32%) of homes are affordable (11% in 2007)
- Southampton (44%), Bristol (53%), Norwich (58%) and Leicester (59%) were among the five least affordable markets in the UK
We calculate the affordability rate using median incomes and average house prices in each geographic area along with prevailing mortgage rates. It judges a home to be ‘affordable’ if one-third of the median income is sufficient to cover mortgage repayments. In 2002 using one-third of income to meet mortgage repayments allowed a purchase of £118,934 whereas today, given the current low financing costs and increased incomes, the same proportion of income finances a purchase of £188,423.
Housing market affordability rate in key UK markets
| City | Average Value March* (£) | March 2010** | 3 Years Ago** | 5 Years Ago** | 7 Years Ago** | 10 Years Ago** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total UK | £211,056 | 58% | 34% | 39% | 56% | 65% |
| Bradford | £115,900 | 82% | 54% | 66% | 86% | 88% |
| Hull | £110,057 | 81% | 56% | 66% | 85% | 87% |
| Stoke-on-Trent | £117,620 | 80% | 52% | 59% | 81% | 83% |
| Birmingham | £146,003 | 78% | 43% | 47% | 71% | 81% |
| Coventry | £147,750 | 78% | 45% | 56% | 72% | 80% |
| Derby | £154,050 | 78% | 53% | 56% | 75% | 84% |
| Manchester | £137,180 | 77% | 45% | 56% | 79% | 83% |
| Liverpool | £138,995 | 75% | 43% | 50% | 77% | 82% |
| Sheffield | £151,661 | 73% | 44% | 50% | 73% | 80% |
| Nottingham | £147,390 | 72% | 43% | 45% | 64% | 76% |
| Leeds | £163,331 | 72% | 44% | 48% | 71% | 80% |
| Glasgow | £147,806 | 71% | 51% | 59% | 73% | 77% |
| Cardiff | £187,410 | 64% | 31% | 37% | 60% | 72% |
| Newcastle | £140,171 | 63% | 35% | 41% | 62% | 72% |
| Edinburgh | £221,824 | 60% | 41% | 45% | 63% | 69% |
| Leicester | £160,805 | 59% | 21% | 25% | 50% | 68% |
| Norwich | £186,347 | 58% | 18% | 25% | 47% | 66% |
| Bristol | £208,225 | 53% | 15% | 22% | 43% | 59% |
| Southampton | £209,333 | 44% | 15% | 17% | 34% | 52% |
| London | £420,237 | 32% | 11% | 17% | 29% | 37% |
*Source: Zoopla.co.uk
**Calculated by Zoopla.co.uk as the proportion of properties where a third of median income in the selected market would be sufficient to cover mortgage repayments, based on prevailing mortgage rates and a 75% LTV mortgage payable over 25 years.
In 2007, when house prices and mortgage rates peaked, affordability rates nationally fell to record lows of 34%, resulting in the subsequent correction over the past couple of years to the more sustainable level of 58% currently. Across the UK, affordability rates vary greatly by area with the most affordable markets generally in the north and the least affordable in the south, despite the higher income levels.
1 comment March 12, 2010
New street views from Google
Following on from yesterday’s Google Street View post it’s now official – Google have added your street to its Street View service in Google Maps, by adding over 238,000 miles of new imagery covering almost all of the UK.
Did you clean the car, mow the lawn, paint the house? Was it sunny they day they came to visit, or perhaps you were snowed in?
Here’s a random selection of places below, but we’d be happy to post more, so leave your suggestions below and we’ll post them.
Check out Google Street View when searching for your property on Zoopla.co.uk
High Street, Chipping Campden, Glos
Map of Chipping Campden on Zoopla.co.uk
Durham Cathedral, Durham
Map of Durham on Zoopla.co.uk
Westgate Hill, Pembrokeshire (Pembroke Castle in the background)
Map of Pembroke on Zoopla.co.uk
The Liver Building, Liverpool
Map of Liverpool on Zoopla.co.uk
Western Promenade Road, Penzance
Map of Penzance on Zoopla.co.uk
Add comment March 11, 2010
Google Street View To Go Nationwide
From tomorrow (11th March), Google will roll out Street View for the whole of the UK which is great news for all house hunters.
The Google cars have been busy filming the UK’s streets to bring improved availability of its Street View service in Google Maps, by adding new imagery covering almost all of the UK.
Here’s our view (sorry!) on Google Street View:
“Google Streetview is a great tool that has been integrated into our website since it first launched last year. Being able to offer street level imagery for the whole of the UK is an invaluable feature for our users as they search for homes to buy or rent and do their research on current home values and recent sold prices. Zoopla.co.uk is all about providing useful tools to our users help them make better informed property decisions and Google Streetview is an important part of that mission.”
Google say that around 238,000 miles of public UK road imagery will be available from tomorrow covering places as far North as Shetland and as far South as Penzance; from Pembrokeshire in the West of Wales to Ipswich in the East of England or over the sea to Northern Ireland and many places in between.
We’ll bring you images from the far-flung places above as soon as Street View is live.
On Monday Google revealed the winners of its ‘Britain’s Best Streets’ Award.
Add comment March 10, 2010
61% of 2009 property sales happened in last six months
It might seem odd that we are only reporting 2009 now, but because of the Land Reg lag it is only now that we can look at the full set of data for the WHOLE of 2009.
2009 was a tale of two very different halves for the UK property market. The first half of the year was pretty poor coming off a year of transaction volumes at historic lows. The second half of the year was a different story as sales started to bounce back strongly, particularly in the south where buyers returned to the market as prices became tempting and to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday.
Key points:
• 61% of last year’s total sales transactions occurred in last 6 months
• Number of properties sold in second half of 2009 up 35% on 2008
• Houses prices up 4.7% in last half of 2009, a gain of 2.5% for year
• England property sales volumes flat in 2009 but Scotland down 33%
The figures reveal the extent of the property market turbulence last year. While property sales in Britain in 2009 were 6.8% lower than a year earlier, it was very much a year of two halves. The number of properties that changed hands in the first 6 months of last year (273,015) was down 36.9% on 2008 but the second half of 2009 showed a 34.6% surge in sales transactions (421,732) compared to the last half of 2008.
While home values in Britain managed a gain of 2.5% over 2009, average house prices fell 2.2% over the first 6 months of the year (from £205,607 to £201,067) before recovering in the second half by 4.7% to reach an average value of £210,661 by the year end. One of the biggest factors in the house price rebound in the second half of last year was the recovery in market activity with increased transaction volumes leading to higher property prices.
Transaction volumes were particularly strong in the fourth quarter of 2009, up by double-digits in all regions compared to 2008 with the exception of Scotland where sales levels have been slow to recover and were up only 8% in Q4 09 versus the previous year and were down 33% for the full year 2009, compared to a decline of only 1% in England and 12% in Wales.
Property Sales
| Country | 1H 2009 | 1 YR Change | 2H 2009 | 1YR Change | Total 2009 | Total 2008 | 1YR Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 228,536 | -33.7% | 358,894 | 43.7% | 587,430 | 594,331 | -1.2% |
| Scotland | 35,334 | -51.1% | 48,664 | -7.7% | 83,998 | 125,025 | -32.8% |
| Wales | 9,145 | -40.9% | 14,174 | 29.8% | 23,319 | 26,392 | -11.6% |
| Total Britain | 273,015 | -36.9% | 421,732 | 34.6% | 694,747 | 745,748 | -6.8% |
Source: Zoopla.co.uk
Add comment March 9, 2010
