New Year, New Home

Next year, 16% of UK householders are planning to move, according to the results of a UK Housing Market Survey recently carried out by Savills Research. Well over half (65%) are looking to move within the next 10 years.

Yolande Barnes, Director of Savills research, maintains that the number who will actually manage to move during 2007 will be closer to 10%, as the limited supply of good quality housing stock in the desirable locations will leave many households disappointed.

“The survey, which was sent to a random sample of UK households, also shed some interesting light on to what motivates homeowners into moving. The overriding reasons can be neatly summed up as ‘aspirational’,” says Barnes, “With well over half of all the respondents quoting a desire to move to a better quality or bigger property, and or a better neighbourhood as the key driver.”

These reasons far outweighed those of the respondents who had to move either for life changes including job/retirement or a financial motive.

Another significant fact illustrated by the survey related to the new build market. Comparing 1999 with 2006, the appeal of the new build market has broadened substantially. Now, over 70% of households would consider buying a new build property compared with just 20% in 1999.

Barnes again, “At the same time as the quality and design of new homes has evolved significantly, modern design has again become fashionable and widely promoted in a variety of media. The stigma once attached to new homes has therefore all but disappeared”.