Home owners in Lancaster need not worry

John GallagherJohn Gallagher
John Gallagher
The Chancellor in the referendum campaign suggested property prices would drop by 18 per cent.

Using Treasury estimates, their method of calculating this was tenuous at best, but focused around the abrupt and hasty increase in UK interest rates, which in turn would raise the cost of mortgages, and therefore lower demand for property, causing a drop in property prices...and I would say, yes, that will probably happen.

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Lancaster property values will probably drop in the coming 12 to 18 months, but by 18 per cent? I am sorry I find that a little pessimistic and believe that figure was rhetoric to get homeowners and landlords to vote in a particular way. However the UK property market is quite a monster.

Since the last In/Out EU Referendum in June 1975, property values in Lancaster have risen by 1654.6 per cent.

The above isn’t a typo. Whilst property prices did drop nationally by 18.7 per cent between the peak of 2007 and bottom of the market in 2009, when you compare property values today in the country, compared to that all-time high of 2007, (the period before the financial crisis of 2008/9) they are still up 10.14 per cent.

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And so, notwithstanding the credit crunch, the worst global economic outlook since the 1930s and the recession it brought us, just a few years later, the government were panicking in 2012/3/4 that the housing market was a runaway train. Now the same credit crunch doom-mongers and sooth-sayers that predicted soup kitchens in 2008/9 are predicting Brexit meltdown.

Stock markets may rise, stock markets may fall, yet the British public continued to buy property in 2009/10 and beyond. Aspiring first time buyers and buy to let landlords dusted themselves down, took a deep breath and carried on buying. Why? Because us Brit’s love our bricks and mortar and we need a roof over our head. And the value of your Lancaster property? It might have a short term wobble...but in the long term it’s safe as houses.