Kent coastal house prices fall

Broadstairs and Herne bay have seen some of the biggest hits in value over the last year.   Oliver Leader de Saxe reports.

Transcript

00:00What comes to mind when you think of the Kent coast, sun, sand or falling house prices?

00:14Across Kent's seaside communities, property value has taken a major hit according to Zoopla,

00:22with Broadstairs, Herne Bay and Westgate-on-Sea being just a handful of the towns most affected.

00:29Some areas have seen their average prices slashed by around £20,000.

00:37But with major increases in market value in places like Dover the previous year, is this something to worry about?

00:46I think it's neither here or there. I think house prices constantly always fluctuate ever so slightly.

00:53There is never a right and wrong time to buy.

00:56Interest rates are always changing. And I think depending on the reasons for move and people's motivation to move,

01:03there's always buyers out there and there's always sellers out there.

01:07I don't think that people should take it negatively at all.

01:11And this is normal. This is what we would expect in the housing market.

01:15One of the reasons for the decline is less people coming down from London after the pandemic,

01:22as they return back to the offices as opposed to finding somewhere idyllic to work from home.

01:29Some of the biggest drops are in Thanet, Kent's second home hotspot, which has around 2,000 such properties.

01:4089% of houses here are worth less than they were a year ago,

01:46with more than £15,000 being knocked off prices in the area on average.

01:54I think everything's expensive now. Right.

01:57And that's the problem. And people don't want to move, but they'd rather stay at home and renovate or expand, you know, extend their homes.

02:04So it's a bit of a shame because Rochester is lovely to come to.

02:08It's a great seaside town, but, you know, it is expensive.

02:11It's quite an affluent area down here and obviously it drags a lot of tourists down, but we're right on the border.

02:17So there is literally a £40,000 difference between our house and that house across the road.

02:22So, yes, it just shows you the value of the houses over here.

02:26But I didn't realise that they dropped.

02:28I just think there's a lot of houses down here, but people don't want them as much.

02:34They're not moving down here as much. So the price is going down.

02:37There's not as much demand for them.

02:40The pandemic housing boom may have washed away here in Kent,

02:45but with staff duty changes and second home tax rises set for April,

02:50it's too early to say whether this will force prospective buyers to draw a line in the sand in 2025.

03:00Oliver, Leader of the Sacks for KMTV in Broadstairs.