Has The Sunderland Property Market Changed In The Last 12 Months?

I was discussing the current state of the Sunderland property market with an investor the other day and his opinion was that the market is pretty much the same now as it was a year ago and is unlikely to see any major changes this year, despite the best efforts of Mr Osborne...this inspired me to look into whether there really have been any significant changes in the last 12 months

Looking at the number of properties on the market, January 2015 there were 1,224 properties on the market for sale in Sunderland representing just over 1% of the total number of households. Of those 1,224 properties 8.7% were Sold STC.

Fastforward to January 2016 and 2,024 properties are currently on the market for sale with 19.5% showing as Sold STC

Clearly this is encouraging news showing that not only are there more properties available but crucially the market seems to be moving more quickly, both conditions being indicators of a suitable environment where prices can rise

This has to be good news, given Sunderland average house prices have flatlined in recent years at around £130-135k following the dramatic fall from the peak of over £175k in 2008

Infact, recent house price data suggests that Sunderland house prices rose by 4% last year...however that only brought them back to 2010 levels

Digging a little deeper and it's interesting to note that last year only 8.4% of Sunderland semi's and 6.3% of terraces (these being the main property types appealing to investment buyers) were Sold STC but this year there has been a dramatic increase with 24.4% of semi's and 18% of terraces being Sold STC

Last year Flats/Apartments seemed to be the best performing property type for attracting buyers with the highest proportion of Sold STC properties (20%) but now this property type is the worst performer (with the percentage of Sold STC properties falling to 13.8%) 

Last year I looked at the number of properties available and Sold STC by postcode and comparing these figures with today again shows encouraging signs - last year the SR2, SR3 and SR4 postcodes all had around 10% of their For Sale properties Sold STC with SR5 having a paltry 1.8% with buyers

Looking at the current figures, properties in all areas are performing far better in terms of attracting buyers but again the figures are flipped on their head with the highest percentage of Sold STC properties being in SR6 (27.0% of all 351 properties), closely followed by SR5 with 21.2% of the 250 properties on the market having buyers

So...it does appear that the Sunderland property market has changed in the last 12 months!

All of this is encouraging news for investors as a healthy sales market is necessary for a healthy rental market - Sunderland has performed well in recent years in delivering investors decent monthly returns but has performed poorly when looking at capital growth. Sound, long term investments should still be based on positive cashflow rather than gambling on values rising however Sunderland being able to match the capital growth potential of other areas offering decent yields can only be a good thing, both in attracting new investors and for current Sunderland investors

If you'd like to have a chat about the Sunderland property market or property investment give me a call on 0191 567 8577 or email neil.whitfield@belvoirlettings.com