M
ounting tensions in
Ukraine, Prince
Charles has Covid
again, yet another
party in Downing
Street — but there was only
one topic on everyone’s lips
last week: whether it really isimpossible in some parts
of the country for young
people to get on to the
property ladder.
You can keep your Netflix
and gym membership talk in
the box marked irrelevant —
it’s house price to incomeratios that are the real
obstacle to home ownership,
particularly for those living in
London or the south of
England (where most of the
jobs are).
In the past ten years, the
gap between house prices
and earnings widened in
every region and 93 per cent
of local authorities in Britain.
Research by the Online
Mortgage Advisor shows that,
in 2012, full-time employees
typically needed 6.3 times
their annual salary to buy a
home. In 2021 they need 7.9
times their salary or 13.4 times
to buy in London. A couple on
an average local salary in theSACRIFICES WE MADE
FOR THAT FIRST HOME
Meet the determined first-time buyers who
scrimped and saved to get on the property ladder
working as a teacher. In 2014
the couple made the ultimate
sacrifice: they moved into
her mother’s garage in
Orpington. “We put in a
radiator and put down a
carpet. It wasn’t easy. It got
cold in winter, and there was
dust from passing trucks. We
were surrounded by stuff. We
were also sharing the house
with my mother and
my three brothers. It was
hard on our privacy as a
couple, but I’m really grateful
to my mother.”
It paid off: the couple saved
£55,000 in two years, and in
2016 paid £330,000 for a
three-bedroom semi incapital are priced out of 74 per
cent of the properties on sale.
It is possible to get on to
the property ladder. Here’s
how some buyers made their
first step.The couple moved
into her mother’s
garage in Orpington
After years of renting a flat
with her boyfriend in
Lewisham, south London,
Rebecca Daniel was tired of
paying someone else’s
mortgage. “The rent kept
going up, and we couldn’t
save any money for a deposit,”
says Daniel, 35, who was thenGOLD
RUSH
Houses worth £1m are now
almost commonplace — and not
just in London. Carol Lewis
reports on the booming market
BEDFORDSHIRE
£1MThis 400-year-old
grade II thatched
cottage in
Maulden near
Bedford has four
bedrooms, a
kitchen with bifold
doors to the
garden and a
double garage.
fineandcountry.
comKELLIE SPICKNELL; PAUL COLESHILL; XPOSURE6 February 13, 2022The Sunday Times
Home £1 MILLION BRITAIN
y
£
Charlton Place, near Canterbury, in Kent sold for £1 million in 1988 and is now on sale with more land for £3.5 million
S
imon Backhouse,
director at Strutt &
Parker’s Canterbury
office, remembers
his first £1 million
sale, in 1988. “Charlton Place
was the highest price achieved
in this part of Kent. In the late
1980s an expensive property
was anything above £350,000
to £400,000.” Today Charlton
Place, a grade II* listed nine-
bedroom mansion, is back on
the market — with more land
and a price tag of £3.5 million.
Such is the rise of the
£1 million house that they have
become almost commonplace,
with 689,168 homes in
Britain — or one in 42
— now estimated to
be worth at least
that figure,
according to
Savills estate
agency. It is no
longer just a
London
phenomenon: the
pandemic race for
space is pushing prices up in
suburbs, villages and market
towns countrywide.
Figures compiled s by
Halifax bank show that in 1995
— when Land Registry house
price data began — there were
134 sales over £1 million in
London, 18 in the South East,
four in the West Midlands and
three in the South West.
Everywhere else there was
one sale, except in the North
West and Wales, where there
were none.
Contrast that with today.
The property boom of the past
year has created a 22 per cent
increase in the number of
property millionaires in the
UK as house prices have risen
due to record demand from
buyers armed with lockdown
savings, low-interest
mortgages and a shortage of
stock. House prices rose by anaverage of 9.7 per cent in the
year to January. This has
created 125,928 new property
millionaires, Savills says.
The greatest number of
£1 million-plus properties is in
London: 332,495 — or one in 11
homes. The area with the least
is the North East of England,
with just 2,333, or one in 533.
The largest increase in the
number of property
millionaires has been in the
South East of England, where
44,484 homeowners saw the
value of their home tip over
£1 million — a 36 per cent rise.
Among them are Jon and
Melanie Roberts, a
couple who bought
their thatched
cottage in
Maulden,
Bedfordshire,
19 years ago for
£500,000. It has
doubled in value.
Jon, 63, a project
manager, and
Melanie, 62, a retired
NHS worker, have put it on
the market for £1 million. “We
weren’t too surprised by the
valuation. We have done a lot
of work and maintenance,
including adding a kitchen
extension and a granny
annexe,” Jon says.
Mike Bell, 70, and his wife,
Judith, 68, are in a similar
situation. They bought the
Grange, near Bleasby village,
Nottinghamshire, 21 years ago
for £485,000. Today the five-
bedroom detached house is on
the market for £1.25 million.
“We have rewired, put in
central heating, damp-proofed
and redone every bathroom,
added a wood-burner and sash
double glazing,” Mike says. “In
the previous boom we had it
valued at £1.1 million, but then
we went through the crash
in 2008-09 and it lost value.”
It is hard to pinpoint whenORPINGTON
£1.1MThis grade II
listed property,
conveniently
located near the
M25, has four
bedrooms, a
double-aspect
sitting room and
a conservatory.
It has been
recently reduced.
hamptons.co.uk1 IN 42
UK properties
worth at
least £1m
This house
was worth £1M
in 1988. Now it is
on sale for
£3.5M