I was having an interesting chat with a Newbury buy to let landlord the other day when the subject of size of households came up. For those of you who read my Brexit article published on the morning after the referendum, one of the reasons why I thought the Newbury property market would, in the medium to long term, be OK, was the fact that the size of households in the 21st Century was getting smaller – which would create demand for Newbury Property and therefore keep property prices from dropping.
Looking at the stats going back to the early 1960’s, when the average number of people in a home was exactly 3, it has steadily over the years dropped by a fifth to today’s figure of 2.4 people per household. Doesn’t sound a lot, but if the population remained at the same level for the next 50 years and the we had the same 20% drop in household size, the UK would need to build an additional 5.28 million properties ( or 105,769 per year) .. When you consider the Country is only building 139,800 properties a year … it doesn’t leave much for people living longer and immigration. Looking closer to home…
In the West Berkshire Council area, the average number of occupants per household is 2.4 people and
when we look at the current picture nationally and split it down into tenure types (i.e. owned, council houses and private renting), a fascinating picture appears.
The vast majority of homes which don’t have a mortgage are occupied by one or two people (81% in fact), although this can be explained as residents being older, with some members of the family having moved out, or a pensioner living alone. According to the Office for National Statistics people living on their own are more likely to live in a Council house (43%) and the largest households (those with 4 or more people living in them) are homeowners with a mortgage – but again, that can be explained as homeowners with families tend to need a mortgage to buy. What surprised me was the even spread of private rented households and how that sector of population are so evenly spread across the occupant range – in fact that sector is the closest to the national average, even though they only represent a sixth of the population.
When we look at the West Berkshire Council figures for all tenures (Owned, Council and Private Rented) a slightly different picture appears…
25.8% of all tenure Properties are 1 person Households
- 36.3% of all tenure Properties are 2 person Households
- 16.4% of all tenure Properties are 3 person Households
- 15.2% of all tenure Properties are 4 person Households
- 6.3% of all tenure Properties are 5+ person Households
But it gets even more interesting when we focus on just private rental properties in Newbury, as it is the rental market in Newbury that really fascinates me. When I analyse those West Berkshire Council private rental household composition figures, a slightly different picture appears. Of the 7,457 Private rental properties in the West Berkshire Council area,
- 29.0% of Private Rental Properties are 1 person Households
- 36.1% of Private Rental Properties are 2 person Households
- 18.4% of Private Rental Properties are 3 person Households
- 11.1% of Private Rental Properties are 4 person Households
- 5.4% of Private Rental Properties are 5+ person Households
As you can see, Newbury is not too dissimilar from the national picture but there is a story to tell. If you are considering future buy to let purchases in the coming 12 to 18 months, I would seriously consider looking at 2/3 bed houses. Even with the numbers stated, there are simply not enough 2 and 3 bedroom houses to meet the demand. They have to be in the right part of Newbury or Thatcham and priced realistically, but they will always let and when you need to sell, irrespective of market conditions at the time they will always be the target of buyers.
