One of our older clients came in to our office this week to discuss her next investment and recalled how she bought her first property for less than what a top of the range wide screen TV would cost today! Thankfully as property prices have risen so too have wages.

This got me thinking about the affordability of property in mid Somerset.

Whilst rising house prices is heralded as good news for homeowners, if wage inflation does not keep pace with these rises it makes housing less affordable for others. As housing becomes less affordable, demand for rental property increases.

The best measure of the affordability of housing is the ratio of house prices to earnings for people living in the area, the higher the ratio, the less affordable housing is.

Looking at the Mendip area between 2002 and 2014 property prices have risen year-year in 8 of those years.

In 2002 the ratio of the average price paid for a property in the Mendip area (£152,500) to the median annual wage (£18,527) was 8.23…

2002 – £152,500 – £18,527 – 8.23
2003 – £163,895 – £20,451 – 8.01
2004 – £185,303 – £19,739 – 9.39
2005 – £190,677 – £21,096 – 9.04
2006 – £199,351 – £23,030 – 8.66
2007 – £222,778 – £22,724 – 9.80
2008 – £209,646 – £23,010 – 9.11
2009 – £205,988 – £24,122 – 8.54
2010 – £221,716 – £26,639 – 8.32
2011 – £218,383 – £26,821 – 8.14
2012 – £218,333 – £25,220 – 8.66
2013 – £223,617 – £25,298 – 8.84
2014 – £238,312 – £26,322 – 9.05

You can see even though there was an improvement just after the 2007 property crash – i.e. the ratio dropped – in the last few years as house prices rose, earnings didn’t keep up and so property has become less affordable.

With fewer people able to save up the deposit now required by mortgage lenders, more and more people are looking to rent in the Mendip area, this has resulted in a change in attitudes towards renting over the last decade.

This delay getting on or moving up the property ladder has driven rents up across the region over the last few years, as more people are seeking properties to rent.

It is a situation replicated across the country where a major transformation is taking place in the housing market and renting is becoming the new norm. 8.5 million people in England now rent from a private landlord. Traditionally the private rental market was mainly the preserve of students and young professionals but in recent years they have been joined by ever increasing numbers of young families and people in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Of households renting privately, one-third are families and nearly half are over 35, with one in three aged over 45

About Tom Morgan

Founder of Jungle Property the multi award-winning letting agent based in Glastonbury, Somerset. I am passionate about property and Glastonbury and about providing the very best advice to anyone who wants the best return on a buy-to-let property investment. For an open and brutally honest opinion on anything in the Glastonbury property market please contact me via tom.morgan@jungleproperty.co.uk

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