The ‘race for space’ that’s dominated the property market for the past 20 months will carry on throughout 2022, according to experts.
Kickstarted by the pandemic, it’s seen prospective buyers moving out of London and other cities to rural or coastal spots where they’ll get more for their money. Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, says the trend is less intense than it was through the summer of 2020 and 2021 but still a big factor.
But it’s not just the result of Covid, he points out.
Moving further afield
Rising house prices in the capital were already squeezing out buyers, it’s just that lockdowns and more flexible working arrangements have super-charged the speed at which it’s happening. This is backed up by data from property portal Rightmove, which has seen a bump in the number of city dwellers planning an escape.
In October 2019, 40 per cent of enquiries on Rightmove were from people living in cities and searching for properties outside. Fast-forward to October 2021 and that figure is now more than 50 per cent.
There’s also been an increase in buyers searching for properties more than 50km away. Pre-pandemic, these made up 14 per cent of enquiries but by the end of last year, it had gone up to 17 per cent.
Rightmove’s director of property data, Tim Bannister, confirms that coastal towns and villages are still extremely popular. ‘When we look at the biggest price movers and hotspots, the usual suspects crop up such as Newquay and St Austell in Cornwall and Paignton and Brixham in Devon,’ he explains.
In fact, Cornwall has become the site’s most searched-for location, knocking London off the top spot.
Bannister also highlights hotspots in smaller towns close to London, such as Esher, Crowborough, Weybridge and Farnham in Surrey and Chelmsford in Essex, where it’s quick and easy to commute into the capital but the same amount of cash buys more square metres and perhaps a garden.
And although Rightmove is forecasting a three per cent growth for London prices during 2022, versus five per cent nationally, there are still many urban hotspots like Richmond which is popular for its village-like vibe and 2,500-acre deer park.
Trending keywords
A vivid example of the way house hunters’ priorities have changed is shown in Rightmove’s research. In 2018, ‘garden’ was right up there in the top keywords people searched for, but the latest data reveals the most keyed-in word is now ‘acre’.
‘People clearly want space but now they’re asking is there enough space?’ Bannister points out.
Another sign of the times is that ‘annexe’ is now the third-most searched term (this was non-existent back in 2018 and 2019), with ‘garage’ in the runner-up spot, as buyers pine after that extra space to transform into a home office, gym or spare bedroom.
And in case there’s any doubt, ‘rural’ and ‘land’ are the other two keywords in the top five.
Core commuter towns
Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, says they’re still seeing strong demand in ‘core commuter towns’ such as Oxford, Cambridge, Winchester and Sevenoaks. But he believes this year’s hotspots will be further afield. So, although the Cotswolds will remain popular, he thinks Dorset and Somerset, including around Taunton, will be more sought-after.
He also expects more interest in the East and West Midlands, and also in Northamptonshire as a cheaper alternative to Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds.
Bedfordshire is undervalued, he says, and therefore a good bet. ‘People don’t talk about Bedfordshire being aspirational in the way they do Buckinghamshire, but if you’re looking for more space, it will provide options,’ he points out.
He hat tips the affluent housing markets in the north such as Sheffield and its attractive suburbs Dore and Totley, plus classic favourites like York and Harrogate.
Going coastal
In terms of coastal hotspots, Cook highlights Cornwall’s most affluent and sought-after places including St Mawes, Polzeath and Padstow. While in Devon, it’s Croyd, Salcombe and Dartmouth which are buyer-magnets.
On the East coast of England, he cites Aldeburgh in Suffolk which ‘always comes up very strongly’, and Norfolk’s pretty coastal towns such as Wells-next-the-sea, Cley next the sea and Brancaster.
Finally, he tips the Welsh coast as being among the hotspots for 2022 – not just all-time favourites like The Gower Peninsular and Pembrokeshire but also further up the coast where houses in Aberdovey and Borth go for much less than similar properties in Cornwall.
He also mentions rural Monmouthshire for its county town Monmouth and bustling market towns like Usk and Abergavenny, plus all the villages in between which offer better value than Hampshire or the Cotswolds and have ‘performed pretty well in 2021 and are expected to continue to do so in 2022’.
Looking to move house? What’s hot for 2022
Overseeing 39 branches around the UK for Strutt & Parker gives head of regional residential agency Kate Eales a good overview of hotspots.
‘Last year, we saw huge numbers of people looking in Devon and Cornwall and I don’t think that will change,’ she says. ‘But people are seeking better value for money. Prices have gone up so much in hotspots it’s going to be the next town along, or the slightly-less-hip town that will become interesting.’
When it comes to coastal locations, she sees the less well-known nooks and crannies of Suffolk and Norfolk coming into their own, along with Eastbourne and some of the other pretty Victorian seaside towns.
Those priced out of 2021’s hotspots like The Witterings near Chichester, she says, will opt for alternatives like Margate, which has undergone a major regeneration project and has a thriving arts scene, or Ramsgate.
When it comes to the countryside, her view is that traditional boltholes such as Surrey Hills villages like Shere and Chiddingfold will continue to be hot.
But some are so overheated ‘not necessarily in price but because people are so fed up with not being able to find anything’, buyers will be forced to go further afield. ‘Instead of looking somewhere like Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, they might look five or so miles outside Cirencester in neighbouring Gloucestershire,’ she points out.
She also likes the look of Somerset – home to Bruton, which is so hip it’s sometimes described as a rural Stoke Newington, and Suffolk which seems to have an endless supply of picturesque small towns like Woodbridge which featured in Netflix series The Dig.
Then there’s the often overlooked county of Leicestershire in the Midlands. From Market Harborough, it’s possible to commute by rail to St Pancras in just under an hour.
‘The housing stock is amazing – loads of beautiful, detached Victorian houses. You get a lot for your money there and the schools are really good,’ Eales points out.
That said, when it comes to rural properties, it’s not just space that buyers dream of.
‘One of the things about the countryside is that people don’t want to be remote,’ Eales says. ‘Hotspots in 2022 will be villages where people can still feel part of a community. We saw that during lockdown with things like “clap for the NHS” and that’s going to remain important for the next few years.’
She says buyers are more interested in finding out about the area they’re considering moving to, such as how they’ll meet people and if there’s a local pub or a village shop.
‘There are a lot of people in the Hampshire set who left London to go and live in a big house behind big gates but when Covid hit, they were miserable because they didn’t see anybody,’ she points out.
Space, space and more space
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She’s also noticed buyers are looking for a different configuration of space. With several members of the family home working, studying and exercising, there’s a move away from uncompromising open-plan layouts towards smaller areas that can be closed off.
Demand for garden home offices has rocketed and if a property doesn’t have super-fast broadband ‘you can forget it’, Eales warns.
Other items high on buyers’ wish lists include big gardens and outdoor kitchens.
Detached homes
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Charlie Graham, director of Rural View which covers Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset, agrees that buyers don’t want a rural pile in the middle of nowhere.
Hotspots on his patch include Tisbury in Wiltshire, which has good road transport links via the A303 corridor and even has its own railway station with a direct line to Waterloo. There’s also a line to Paddington, which runs through North Somerset, making the whole area well connected.
What’s known as ‘the golden triangle’ from Blandford up to Shaftesbury and across to Salisbury including the countryside of Cranborne Chase and Salisbury Plain chalk downs, is punctuated by postcard-pretty valleys.
Graham says buyers are after detached houses with a home office, four or five bedrooms and either a large garden or decent plot of land and, ideally, a good set of outbuildings.
The ‘Holy Grail’ is a house fitting that description on the edge of a village with a shop, pub, primary school and church. ‘Villages with good amenities and transport links are few and far between, so they’re the hotspots,’ he explains.
Examples include Hindon, East Knoyle and Semley where a four-bedroom house goes for anything from £700,000 to £3 million, depending on how much land is attached.
Graham’s agency put a family home in Hindon, valued at £775,000, on the market last week. Within three days they’d booked 45 viewings and a deal is going through for ‘well in excess’ of the guide price.
‘That shows you what’s happening,’ he says. ‘There’s a huge number of people looking and an awful lot of cash about.’
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