Southampton: Regeneration and development to boost house price rise, says JLL

Southampton will see considerable regeneration and development over the next few years, pushing up house prices, according to property consultancy JLL.

Speaking at a Southampton Property Association event, Neil Chegwidden, JLL’s residential research director, said that regeneration and development at WestQuay Watermark, Centenary Quay, Cultural Quarter, Admiral Quay and Platform for Prosperity, to name a few, should make Southampton a more attractive and appealing place to live, work and shop, which will help drive house prices notably higher.

Nella Pang, associate director at JLL in Southampton, who was recently elected vice-chair of the Southampton Property Association, hosted the CPD (continuing professional development) event at Oceana House in the heart of the city’s central business district. Law firm Bond Dickinson, which is the main occupier of the building, was the lead sponsor of the event.

JLL is marketing Grade A newly-refurbished office space at Oceana House with 9,495 sq ft available on the third floor.

Chegwidden said: “Average property prices in Southampton, at £151,000 according to Land Registry, are significantly below the £232,000 in Hampshire. Furthermore, prices in Southampton have not yet recovered to 2007 peak levels, and are still 6% below their peak, while, across Hampshire as a whole, prices are 3% above their earlier peak.”

Although the general election will take centre stage during the first few months of the year, he said that by far the most important factor for the housing market will be a much stronger economy and jobs market over the next couple of years in particular.

“More jobs, greater security in jobs and wage rises will become widespread which will lead to much greater household confidence and ultimately will result in higher housing demand. The housing market will also be supported by the recent stamp duty reforms, government support in the form of Help to Buy as well as ‘the bank of mum and dad’.”

Affordability issues still remain in the housing market which will also be influenced by rising interest rates and the impact of the Mortgage Market Review (MMR), said JLL.  However, Chegwidden said that overall he expects the underlying conditions to be very supportive of a strong housing market over the next few years.

“We are expecting UK prices to rise by 4% next year but prices in the South East to increase by 5%. Over the next five years we are forecasting house prices to rise by 27% in the South East, notably higher than the 23% in the UK.”

Ben Ponting, senior planner at JLL, who was also a speaker at the event, said take-up of permitted development rights for office-to-residential conversions has expedited the delivery of new housing in the Southampton region. “There are units currently on the market that would have still been going through the planning process under the previous scheme.”

The Government, in a consultation paper issued last year, has proposed to increase the deadline for the scheme from May 2016 until May 2019.

The Southampton Property Association CPD event was attended by 80 people including property consultants, accountants, solicitors and council representatives.

Other speakers at the event included Ponting; Marcus Antill of Energy Matters; Mark Barley of Bond Dickinson; Emily Lowe and Mike Middleton of Wilkins Kennedy; and Dawn Baxendale of Southampton City Council.