Easy problems should have easy solutions – shouldn’t they?
Problems like Lancaster’s housing crisis, where we have a rudimentary numerical problem of too few homes for too many people. The answer is clearly to build more property in Lancaster, but that, unfortunately for those desperately seeking to purchase or let a property, takes a lot of time and huge amounts of money. So what of other solutions?
Whilst at a dinner with friends recently, the subject of property was mentioned. My friend mentioned empty properties as the solution to the problem. On the face of it, it seems so obvious. Interestingly, I had recently done some recent research on this topic, which I want to share with you (as I did with those at the dinner table).
The most recent set of figures from 2015 state there are 2,457 empty homes in the Lancaster City Council area. Whilst they stand empty, 2,361 Lancaster households (not people – households) are on the Council House Waiting List for council houses. This begs the question, why not put them back in to the system and help ease the Lancaster housing crisis? We can undoubtedly all agree that property left empty for years and years isn’t morally right with the burgeoning Council House Waiting List, not to also mention the issue of homelessness, can’t we?
However a different story emerges when you look deeper into the numbers. Of those 2,457 homes lying empty, only 908 properties were actually empty for more than six months. The local authority has to report a property being empty, even if it is for a week. So many of the Lancaster properties are either awaiting new homeowners or, in the case of rental properties, new tenants. Also most certainly, some properties are being refurbished and renovated, while others properties have homeowners who are anxious to sell but cannot find a buyer.
And this is where its gets even more interesting. Of the 908 long-term vacant properties (those empty more than six months), 167 belong to the council. However, before we all go Council-bashing, evidence suggests these empty council houses are habitually in need of so much restoration that it’s not worth the Council’s while to do and are in the roughest parts of the council estates. They are properties that even the Council find difficult to fill.
The fact is that the number of genuinely long term empty properties is only a tiny drop in the ocean of the 57,822 properties in the area covered by Lancaster City Council and, even if every one of those empty homes were filled with happy cheerful tenants tomorrow, it would only meet a small fraction of Lancaster housing needs.
So what does this mean for all the homeowners and landlords of Lancaster? Well it means with demand being so high, especially for rental properties, the certainty of the rental market growing is an inevitability because young people cannot buy and councils don’t have the money to build new council houses. This in turn bolsters property prices as landlords continue to buy at the lower end of the market (starter homes, etc), which in turn sustains the rest of the market as those sellers move up the property ladder, releasing others in turn to buy on again.
These are interesting times in the Lancaster property market and set to get more so!
Do you have any questions you’d like to ask me about the Lancaster housing market? Why not email me at john@jdg.co.uk or pop in and see me at our Lancaster Office on Market Street.