“How
much would it cost to buy all the properties in Warminster?”
This fascinating question was posed by the 14-year-old son of
one of my Warminster landlords when they both popped into my office. So I
thought to myself, I would sit down and calculate what the total value of all
the properties in Warminster are worth … and just for fun, work out how much
they have gone up in value since his son was born back in the autumn of 2002.
In the last 14 years, since the autumn of 2002, the total value of
Warminster property has increased by 54% or £565.5 million to a total of £1.61
billion. Interesting, when you consider the FTSE100 has risen by 68.9% and
inflation (i.e. the UK Retail Price Index) rose by 38.7% during the same 14
years.
When I delved deeper into the numbers, the average price
currently being paid by Warminster households stands at £200,775.… but you know
me, I wasn’t going to stop there, so I split the property market down into
individual property types in Warminster; the average numbers come out like this
..
Warminster Property
Market
|
|||
Average Value of a
Detached Property
|
Average Value of a
Semi-Detached Property
|
Average Value of a
Terraced/Town House Property
|
Average Value of a
Flat / Apartment
|
£304,000
|
£215,786
|
£186,163
|
£78,093
|
... yet it got even more fascinating when I
multiplied the total number of each type of property by the average value. As
detached houses are more expensive, when you compare them with the much cheaper
terraced/town houses and apartments, you can quite clearly see how valuable
detached properties are in terms of total pound note value, when compared to
the value of the terraced/town houses and apartments.
Total Value of all
the Warminster Detached Properties
|
Total Value of all
the Warminster Semi-Detached Properties
|
Total Value of all
the Warminster Terraced/Town House Properties
|
Total Value of all
the Warminster Apartments
|
£626,240,000
|
£571,401,328
|
£344,960,039
|
£70,049,421
|
So, what
does this all mean for Warminster? Well
as we enter the unchartered waters of 2017 and beyond, even though property
values are already declining in certain parts of the previously over cooked Central
London property market, the outlook in Warminster remains relatively good as
over the last five years, the local property market was a lot more sensible
than central London’s.
Warminster house
values will remain resilient for several reasons. Firstly, demand for rental
property remains strong with continued immigration and population
growth. Secondly, with 0.25 per cent interest
rates, borrowing has never been so cheap and finally the simple lack of new
house building in Warminster not keeping up with current demand, let alone
eating into years and years of under investment – means only one thing – yes it
might be a bumpy ride over the next 12 to 24 months but, in the medium term,
property ownership and property investment in Warminster has always, and will
always, ride out the storm.