Iceland directors aside (one was sacked last week for anti-Welsh comments), the British love Wales. So much so that many of us want to buy property there so we can live and holiday in unspoilt countryside and enjoy some of the best beaches in the land.
With so many of us rushing west, though, the property market is hotter than the local rarebit. As Belinda Hutchinson-Smith, who sells property in mid and north Wales for Strutt & Parker, says: “Demand and interest is extremely high, with some properties exchanging within 48 hours of receiving offers and others selling for 25 per cent above guide price. In my 25 years of working in the industry I’ve never seen demand so high in Wales.”
Carol Peett, the founder of West Wales Property Finders, a buying agency, http://www.westwalespropertyfinders.co.uk agrees. “It is remarkable — nothing good is lasting more than a day on the market,” she says.
It is a phenomenon borne out by the data, which shows that 89 per cent of Welsh postcode districts are sellers’ markets, with 35 per cent or more of the homes on the market under offer. The hottest postcode is LL39 in Snowdonia National Park, where 80 per cent of properties being sold are under offer. Many buyers are Saeson (English people) with Hamptons calculating that just 65 per cent already live in Wales. Alongside the draw of a better lifestyle, English city dwellers are attracted by the value for money.
The continued demand is pushing up prices rapidly. Government statistics published last week show that property prices in Wales increased by 10.7 per cent in the year to December, up from 6.9 per cent in November 2020. This is compared with 8.5 per cent growth in England, 8.4 per cent in Scotland and 5.3 per cent in Northern Ireland.
Gavin Brazg, the founder of Propcast, which collated the data, says: “Over the past seven months we can see buyer demand has grown to record high levels across Wales and we don’t expect these elevated levels to peter out any time soon. If the first lockdown has anything to teach us it’s that buyer demand does not diminish in a lockdown.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lustworthy-homes-on-sale-in-wales-xm7wqzwvq – The Sunday Times 21st February 2021
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