A Blair price

As the news that Tony Blair has put his former constituency home in Sedgefield on the market hits the headlines, leading portal Primelocation.com asks whether such a celebrity connection will add value to a prime property.

The evidence of the Blairs’ house - a four-bedroom former pit-manager’s home located in Trimdon Colliery, County Durham - would suggest that, for one-off celebrity homes, the answer is no.

The property has proved an excellent investment for the Blairs – the asking price of £300,000 is over three times the average for the area* and represents a ten-fold return on the £30,000 they paid for the house in 1983.

However, the Blairs remortgaged the home to the value of £297,000 in 2004 to fund the purchase of a new London home. The negligible difference between the remortgage value of the house and the current asking price, taken in conjunction with data on properties of a similar size and location from Primelocation.com, would suggest that the connection to the Blairs has not added a premium to the price.

In contrast, properties in locations that are home to a number of stars do appear to have a price premium attached. For example, following Chelsea’s decision to open a new training ground in Cobham in 2004, the village now boasts a plethora of footballers among its residents. Although Cobham was already a wealthy town, the influx of Premiership stars has reportedly doubled the upper price limit for property in the town, making it even more exclusive**.

“The fact that a celebrity previously owned a home might make a good story, but it probably won’t have a great impact on the price of an individual property and only if the area itself is desirable will a premium be attached,” says Andrew Smith, Head of Research for Primelocation.com. “After all, the new buyer has to live there, and a celebrity connection won’t make it any more suitable as a home.”

“A concentration of celebrities in one place, however, is another matter. As has happened in Cobham, the money that a wealthy elite bring to an area will inevitably attract better shops, restaurants and amenities to cater for them. This in turn makes for a more desirable location, pushing up prices.”

* The average price for homes in TS29 was £97,642 in August 2009 – Land Registry

** Robin Ball, of Boyce Thornton, a Cobham estate agency
timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article4281998.ece