Didsbury house prices on the rise
Since Christmas, Didsbury first-time buyers and savvy Didsbury buy-to-let landlords have been more active than expected in the Didsbury property market.
Rents in the Didsbury area have soared in the last two years, with the average Didsbury rent increasing to £1,286 a month, an increase of 24.1%.
Because of these growing Didsbury rents, it has made homeownership more cost-effective for younger Didsbury buyers and more lucrative for Didsbury landlords.
On the back of this, house prices are rising in Didsbury.
But how can I say house prices are rising when the Land Registry and other indices from the banks state they are falling?
The Land Registry figures published this month will be from sales completed (i.e., keys and monies handed over in February 2023). Yet, as everyone knows, it takes on average, 19 weeks from agreeing on a sale to a completed sale in the UK, so those Land Registry house price figures are from house sales agreed upon in September or October 2022.
If only there were a more up-to-date way of calculating what is happening to house prices.
Well, there is!
By measuring what houses sell for at the sale agreed date by their square footage.
The measure of £/sq. ft is not a particular great way to judge the value of an individual property. However, when looking at a national and regional level, its accuracy is excellent (98% accurate on a national level and around 95% accurate on a regional level).
The average price per square foot at sale agreed matches the Land Registry and Nationwide House Price Index to a very high tolerance/accuracy level, albeit 7 or 8 months before the Land Registry/Nationwide publish their data.
So by tracking the regional £/sq. ft figures for the North West, it will give us an excellent idea of what is happening to Didsbury house prices now.
The top of the property market was in July 2022 when the average £/sq. ft achieved for all house sales agreed in the North West was £244.75/sq. ft.
By December 2022, this had dropped to £232.76/sq. ft, a drop of 5.15% (for the North West homes sold stc in December ’22).
By this April, the average £/sq. ft achieved for all house sales agreed in the North West had risen by 5.63% to £246.65/sq. ft.