Erdington Property Market
Do We Have the Right Sort of Erdington Homes
For the 21st Century?
Would it surprise you to know that in some parts of Erdington, predominantly prosperous areas with high proportions of mature residents, the housing crisis is not one of supply so much as a dispersal of that supply? Theoretically, in Erdington there are more than enough bedrooms for everyone – it’s just they are disproportionately spread among the population, with some better-off and more mature households living in large Erdington homes with many spare bedrooms, and some younger Erdington families being overcrowded.
Yet it is not the fault of these well-off mature residents that this is the current situation. Let’s be frank, Erdington doesn’t have enough housing full stop (otherwise we wouldn’t have the large Council House waiting list and all the younger generations renting instead of buying), but up until now, it hasn’t been clear that Erdington actually also has the wrong types of properties.
We’re not building the smaller homes in Erdington that are needed for the starter homes and we aren’t building enough bungalows for the older generations, so they can be released from their larger Erdington homes, thus allowing those growing Erdington families to move up the ladder.
Looking at the stats for Erdington, and B24 in particular.
When I compared Erdington (B24) with the regional stats of the B postcode, the locality has proportionally 25.9% more semi-detached homes, yet 28.3% less detached. Looking nationally, Erdington (B24) has proportionally 53.7% more semi-detached homes and quite surprisingly, proportionally 52.4% fewer apartments.
I am finding that there has been a shortage of smaller townhouses and smaller apartments being built in Erdington over the last 20 years, because most of the new builds in the last couple of decades seem to have been either large executive houses or the apartments that have been built were of the larger (and posher) variety, even though demand for households (as lifestyles have changed in the 21st Century) have been more towards the lower to middle-sized households.
The builders do want to build, but there’s a deficiency of building land in Erdington, and if there’s a shortage of building land, then, of course, new homes builders build whatever gives them the biggest profit. The properties that give them the largest profit are the biggest and most expensive properties and they certainly are not bungalows as they take up too much land. So who can blame them?
Yet would it surprise you to know that it’s not a lack of space (look at all the green you see when flying over the UK), it’s the planning system? Green belts must be observed, but only 1.2% (yes 1.2% – that isn’t a typo) is built on in this country as a whole with homes – we need the planners to release more land (and then force/encourage builders to build on it – not sit on it). Another problem is that of the smaller new homes that have been built, most of them have been snapped up for renting, not owning.
So, what’s the answer? Build more Council houses? Yes, sounds great but the local authority hasn’t enough money to cut the grass verges, let alone spend billions on new homes in Erdington. The Government did relax the planning laws a few years ago, for example for changing office space into residential use, yet they could do more as currently new homes builders have no incentive to build inexpensive homes or bungalows that the system needs to make a difference.
So, what does this mean for Erdington homeowners and Erdington landlords?
Changing the dynamics of the Erdington, regional and national property market will only change in decades, not years. The simple fact is we are living longer, and we need 240,000 to 250,000 houses a year to stand still with demand, let alone start to eat into 30 years of under-building where the average has been just under 170,000 households a year.
That means, today as a country, we have a pent-up demand of 2.25m additional households and we need to build a further 4.2m households on top of that figure for population growth between 2019 and 2039. So, irrespective of whether we have short term blip in the property market in the next 12/18 months, investing in property is, and always will be, a great investment as demand will always outstrip supply.
If you’re looking to buy or rent a new home in Birmingham, browse our listings of houses for sale in Erdington, flats for sale in Erdington, houses to rent in Erdington and flats to rent in Erdington, as well as properties listed across the wider Birmingham area.