Coronation to Jubilee: how the property market has changed

The housing market has changed quite a bit over the last 60 years, as research from the Halifax underlines.

Using their own data as well as information from the Office for National Statistics and the Communities and Local Government department, they have identified the main developments in the UK from 1951 to 2011…

House Prices
* Over the last 60 years, the average UK house price has increased 7,278% in nominal terms from £2,200 in 1951 to £162,338 in 2011 – this is three times the rise in retail price inflation over the same period (2,477%)
* House prices in the 1980s recorded their biggest increase with a real rise of 42% between 1981 and 1991 – the worst performing decade was the 1950s when house prices declined by 7% in real terms
* House prices have been the highest in relation to people’s earnings over the last 10 years

Housebuilding
* More than 15 million homes have been built in the UK in this period, the number built each year has fallen by one-third since 1951, from 201,860 to around 137,000 in 2011.
* Our homes are getting smaller. Homes of less than 50m2 in size (538 square feet) accounted for 9% of all homes built before 1980. This proportion doubles for homes built after 1980 (18%).
* Detached homes account for 10% of the current English housing stock constructed between 1945 and 1964 while detached properties account for more than a third (36%) of the housing stock built after 1980. The figures for semi-detached properties are 41% and 15%, and for flats it is 20% and 15% respectively

Housing Quality
* In 1947, more than four in ten households lacked a fixed bath/shower. By 1991, this had fallen to three in a thousand
* Nearly two out of every three households were without a basic hot water supply in 1947. In 1991, this had fallen to one in a hundred
* Households in England with a second toilet have increased from 31% in 1996 to 41% in 2007.

Housing tenure and households
* Home ownership has more than doubled over the last 60 years from 32% of all households in England in 1953 to 66% in 2010-11
* The proportion of homes in the privately rented sector has fallen by two-thirds since the 1950s, from 50% in 1953 to 17% in 2010-11
* The proportion of households in England occupied by married couples has dropped since the 1970s from 70% in 1971 to 40% in 2011. Over the same period, the proportion of single person households in England has risen from 19% in 1971 to 33% in 2011.

Regional House Prices
* The average house price in the south has risen by 164% in real terms while the real increase in the north is 130%
* London has experienced the biggest increase in house prices with a real rise of 189%. Scotland recorded the smallest increase with a real rise of 91%.

“Today, the typical UK household is very different compared with the 1950s following the substantial growth in home ownership and the shift towards single occupancy households,” said Martin Ellis, housing economist at Halifax. “The quality of our homes has improved markedly. House prices, however, have become prone to pronounced swings over the past 40 years and the rapid decline in the number of homes being built since the 1950s has contributed to the demand-supply imbalance that has characterised the UK housing market in recent years. This is likely to continue to play an important role in determining the landscape of the UK housing market over the coming years.”
Useful web sites for more information

• Independent Property Search Engine
• Independent House & Home section

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• DrKatherineWinterton

  >>Over the last 60 years, the average UK house price has increased 7,278% in nominal terms from £2,200 in 1951 to £162,338 in 2011 – this is three times the rise in retail price inflation over the same period (2,477%)

  >> The average house price in the south has risen by 164% in real terms while the real increase in the north is 130%

  You forgot to read the website you copied this article from.  These two claims are mutually incompatible.

• derek bevan

  You forgot to mention the increase in Homelessness ! Proberly also up 164% .

• Fareham

  Something’s not quite right here.

  In 1974, when I bought my first house, new houses had a premium of about 15% over their ‘old’ equivalents, predominantly due to the cost of building. The insurance cover for rebuilding in the case of total loss came in at about 30% more than we paid for the house (a terraced house in Bristol).

  Nearly 40 years on and those figures are very different. There appears to be no premium for new stuff (if you can find it), and the insurance cover is now about 70% for total loss rebuild of the purchase price. I know this as my daughter’s just bought a house almost identical to the one we had – just a couple of streets away from where ours was.

• Guest

  First time buyers are stopped from buying cheaper houses due
  to pedantic mortgage requirements surveys etc… Now these houses are snapped
  up by the BTL vultures, who then prey on the failed first time buyers. Charging
  them rents at such a high level that they will never be able to save for a deposit….
   It has become a kind of indentured
  labour!!  The BTLs also increase the
  demand for housing and keep the prices rising! The UK housing market is not fit
  for purpose and should be reformed making housing more affordable and
  available…
   

• Bob Everitt

   erm…

  might help if you read it again madam. The comparison between north and south house price rises is, as you quote, “in real terms”: that is, the increase in the house price has been divided by the increase in retail price inflation over the same period of time.

  Secondly, you failed to quote the bit about the divergence in the north-south house prices being SINCE 1970. Hence, quite a different time period to the top quote.

  Please be more careful