Welcome to our little blog where we dive into the data and see what is happening in the Exeter property market.
At Barr Financial we work with a lot of property investors, and we hope to share some of our insights with you. Let's dive into it:
The Exeter property market is full of mixed signals! On the one side, there is a huge amount of optimism surrounding Exeter as an area to live, work and buy property.
On the other side, there remains political uncertainty which affects confidence. To help you decide where best to buy, let's look at the facts and see how Exeter has performed over the last five years and see how this compares with other local areas.
Exeter Mortgage Broker Insights – Property Prices:
At the time of writing (May 2019) the latest figures that are available from Land Registry are up to February 2019. The data shows the average property price in Exeter was standing at £253,920.
Of course, we know averages only mean so much and there is a big variation depending on the property type. To read more about the averages of different properties and what might be the best type of property to invest in Exeter, you can read our blog, 'The Best Property To Buy In Exeter'.
Interestingly February’s figures are down from the high of October 2018. This saw average property prices standing at £260,978.
Whether this is a blip or a downward trend, it’s too early to know. However, it is important to always be aware that property prices do fluctuate up and down from month to month. So making a decision based on a few months' data might not be the only thing you want to consider!
Mortgage Broker Insights – Price’s over the last 5 years
Past performance is, of course, no indication of what will happen in the future, but it can help put things into perspective when there are often monthly price fluctuations. So let’s take a look at where the average Exeter property price was standing five years ago:
In February 2014 average Exeter property prices stood at £208,343 which means prices have on average risen by £45,577 over the last five years. That is a 22% increase.
Not bad right?
How does Exeter compare with other local areas?
The performance of one area over another, won’t always be important to everyone as sometimes there are other considerations to take into account, such as schools, work or you just happen to want to live in a particular area.
However, it is interesting to see how different local areas have performed over the last five years and they compare with Exeter.
Benchmark: Exeter which has risen by 22% over the last five years.
- East Devon = 25% increase
- Teignbridge = 21% increase
- Mid Devon = 22% increase
- North Devon = 19% increase
- Plymouth = 19% increase
Predicting The Future!
As a mortgage broker who serves clients in Exeter, we are always being asked our opinion. From; what is the property marketing doing? Is it a good property? Is it a good area? Is it a good price? Are prices going up or down? Of course, we don’t know, no one does for sure!
However, we do have a sense and a close ear to the ground like lots of local property professionals. Because of this, we have decided to sign up (along with other local property professionals) and contribute our opinion of the local property market to Property Insights.
Property Insights is an amazing platform for anyone interested in the property market. One of the many great things it does is it tries to predict the future direction of property prices in a local area!
It connects the local property professionals together and allows them to share their local views on the property market. Don’t forget every local property market can be so different, and we think the local professionals on the ground are best placed to know what is happening.
Exeter Mortgage Broker Final Thoughts!
So what does this tell us?
Well, all areas have seen positive growth over the last five years with East Devon outperforming the others with a 25% increase over the last five years.
East Devon has a lot going for it with some great schools, nice villages and towns, making it an attractive area for families. With the added benefit of being close to good transport links and its close proximity to Exeter, East Devon is a great place to live.
Of course, that’s not to say you shouldn’t consider other areas in Devon. It really does depend on what you are looking to achieve and your reason for buying.
A family will have a completely different buying requirement than a property investor or even a first-time buyer. So whoever you are and whatever you are looking to achieve, think closely about what is right for you.
Although headline averages are helpful to some extent, don’t just rely on these as by their very nature, averages will only tell you part of the story!
A little bit about us; with our head office in North Devon, we've been fortunate to have expanded into Exeter and have been helping lots of clients in the area, from property investors to Nurses and Doctors. But at our core, it's quite simple really, we want to help people navigate the complexity of getting a mortgage! So if you need a friendly helping hand, drop us a line and say hi!