The buoyant UK house market has put some workers at risk of being priced out of living in rural and coastal areas, contributing to skill shortages in the tourism and hospitality industries that their local economies rely on.
Prices in July tripled the national rate of 8 per cent in some rural and coastal areas. Conwy in North Wales registered an annual rate of 25 per cent, North Devon 22.5 per cent and Richmondshire in the Yorkshire Dales rose 21 per cent, extending a trend during the Covid-19 crisis, the Office for National Statistics showed on Tuesday.
The pandemic “has fuelled the popularity of coastal homes and property prices are rising faster than a spring tide”, said Kate Allen, owner at Devon-based luxury holiday lettings specialist, Salcombe Finest.
“Given the local wage is lower than the national average, yet property prices are among the highest in the country, the housing market is out of reach for most local first-time buyers and families looking to upsize, which is destabilising communities,” she added.
In contrast, the seven areas that recorded a decline in the same month were all London boroughs, reflecting a shift in consumer preferences towards larger properties in less crowded places as more people work from home at least part of the time during the Covid-19 emergency.
“People living in rural and coastal areas, particularly the young and those on lower incomes, are at risk of being priced out of the housing market,” stated the ONS.
Various locations have shown a similar divergence in house price growth between London and other tourist hotspots. Eden, Powys, and Derbyshire Dales, which have a high number of tourism businesses relative to their population, have all posted price rises of 10 per cent or more in every month of this year.
The City of London, City of Westminster and Camden meanwhile, which are also considered tourist hotspots, are the only areas with a decline in prices for those seven consecutive months.
The ONS noted that this could contribute to hospitality businesses being unable to fill vacancies, with the industry being predominant in tourist areas and containing a high proportion of young and low-paid workers.
The median hospitality salary for a full-time employee is 28 per cent lower than the national average, making it challenging to afford properties when prices are rising.
A third of under-30s, who are more likely to work in the hospitality sector, reported at least some difficulty making ends meet in the year to March, the highest percentage of any age group.
“This has implications for the industries that tourism economies rely on, such as hospitality which is reporting record levels of job vacancies,” stated the ONS.
Nearly a third of hospitality businesses were finding vacancies difficult to fill in late August, amid reports of workers being priced out of buying or renting near their job.
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