Will Lancaster and Morecambe Property Prices continue to increase?

The Lancaster and Morecambe Property Market has a problem. It’s not unique. Many towns, villages and cities across the UK are having the same problem and this is a lack of property for sale. In the industry, it is called a stock shortage. The problem is across both the sales and rental market.

Property and rental prices are expected to climb across most of the UK over the next three months, based on the latest RICS sentiment survey of Chartered Surveyors. The price growth will be much lower, it has to be when faced with the increase in costs of living and also the increase in mortgage rates. Simply put, people won’t be able to afford as much or even borrow as much. But still, it is expected to grow.

In a recent survey of chartered surveyors, +21 surveyors expect the value of house prices to increase further over the next few months. Surveyors are even more optimistic about the short-term outlook for rents, with +58 expecting rental values to increase further. The big issue with the rental market is that is suffering falling landlord instructions at a time when demand from renters is increasing, possibly due to lack of stock in the sales market.

At JDG we monitor the market closely. We are seeing that prices are starting to stabilize across Lancaster and Morecambe. Buyers will have noticed the increase in price reductions appearing on websites like Rightmove. As of today, there have been 72 this month alone – however this tends be due to over optimistic asking prices given in the first instance.

The bigger concern is in the rental market. Rents are increasing. We are finding most properties tend to still have over 30 applications per property. Research shows that this is expected to continue for the next 5 years with the rate of rent growth expected to be higher than property price growth has been / will be. This might be good news for investors but sadly not for tenants.

If you would like to chat about the local housing market and what this might mean for you, please get in touch. At JDG we are here to help.

Thanks for reading

Michelle

Source: Dataloft, RICS (net balance score is calculated by the proportion of survey respondents reporting a rise minus those reporting a fall in the given indicator)