The Wiltshire Property Price Journey in 2024

Well, we are nearly there!

Hello December – twinkling lights, countless calories, festive fun and games, and George Michael’s dulcet tones wherever you go. Wiltshire homeowners might well wonder what this topsy turvy year has done to the property market – the wider market, and especially the local one, and what that in turn means for their property within it – as we sail towards the end of 2024 and the forthcoming ‘quarter century’ mark.

It really has been topsy turvy. There has been a lot to contend with: fun stuff, like the Men’s European Championships and the Olympic Games; economic stuff, like high interest rates, stubborn inflation and sticky mortgage rates; political stuff, like a General Election called early, and a Budget that left markets feeling a little peaky; international stuff, like a US Presidential Election, a land war in Ukraine and continued conflict in the Middle East; existential stuff, even, like climate change induced heatwaves, flooding and hurricanes…

As far as the property market goes, some of these things were distractions, good and bad; some caused financial anxiety; and some have had a direct impact on property values, by affecting the cost of borrowing or the value of the pound.

So how has the property market behaved nationally and locally in 2024, and what does that mean for you as a homeowner or if you are buying a property in Wiltshire?

To understand it, let us first go back in time – back to the turn of the century in fact, as property values in England began to soar…

Property prices did indeed rocket over the course of the past two and a half decades, with the average property value increasing from £85,000 in the year 2000, to £291,000 today – a 242% increase, but importantly an increase ahead of any increase in average salaries. Back then, a property would cost around 6.4 times the average salary, but now it looks to be around 8.3 times the average salary.

242% sounds like what it is, I’m sure: a large jump.

However, that increase in terms of relativeness to salary may sound modest. In real terms though, that 1.9% ‘price against salary’ difference is actually a 30% increase.

It reflects the way that the base rate and therefore mortgage rates have changed. Coming out of the 1990s, recovering from recession and the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis, when the Bank of England base rate peaked at 12%, the base rate had fallen to 6% by the turn of the century – but it had only just got there. House prices therefore were stabilising. The Base Rate dropped further as we headed into the 2000’s, bottoming out at 3.5% in 2003, and so along with the introduction of self-certified mortgages and 100% loan to value mortgage products, property values were just on the point of exploding – which they did, until (and in large part contributing to) the next financial crisis precipitated by the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2007, leading to recession in 2008. That is when things really changed, with the Bank of England cutting the base rate to 0.25%, and mortgage rates (eventually) following suit. After two years of credit-crunch, a combination of severely pent-up demand, a lack of housing leading to competition amongst buyers, and combined with an ability for people to borrow more and to extend mortgage terms for longer, house prices again shot up.

But that picture may have changed (more on that, later).

The Wiltshire property market has seen a similar story-arc, although in truth it has not fared quite the same as that national picture over the same period, in terms of property prices. The average house price in Wiltshire in the year 2000 was around £110,000, and today that sits at around £338,000; not a dissimilar ‘pound coins’ increase as the national story, but as far as percentages go, that is around a 200% increase as opposed to 242%. Still of course significant, especially when we consider that the average salary in Wiltshire is around £33,000 – making property values here ten times an average salary, and therefore less affordable than the national average.

Now, the signs are there that the wider, national property market has felt a bit of a sting over the course of 2024, with house prices beginning to come down, and Wiltshire hasn’t escaped that. The average sale value here has fallen from £358,000 this time last year to the £338,000 mark now – a drop of 5.6%, which is indicative of the market in general.

Yet, Wiltshire homeowners might forgive themselves for feeling oddly chipper, as the county has seen somewhat of a resurgence in terms of sales numbers, despite property values dropping, over the past year. Land Registry figures indicate around an 11% increase in property transactions in our region this year compared to last.

Property values are a bit of obsession in this country, but they do not actually tell the whole story. Perhaps they just interest those who are in charge of writing the news.

To us, they are just one piece of the puzzle, and realistically our goal is not to drive prices ever upwards. Prices do tend to go up, over time, but when they come down it does not mean that a move should be off the cards – and this 11% increase in transactions during a period where prices have fallen, is the perfect evidence of that.

What matters to us as Wiltshire Estate Agents is helping people like you to move home – at the right value, but especially for the right reasons and at the right speed. It is about understanding needs and wants, nailing the former and achieving as much of the latter as we possibly can – and that is why at The House Group we work in the bespoke, personalised way that we do to achieve that.

Property prices do not always go up – but people do always move home. If you are wondering what your property value has done and whether that affects your plans, let’s book a consultation. We can provide an up to date assessment of your property, if you need to sell one, and explain what a move will look like – even helping you with a cost of moving exercise to understand what mortgage you may need, in order to make the move you are hoping to make.

It has been a topsy turvy kind of a year – but where there is a will, there’s a way, and at The House Group we have all the best will in the world.