Happy New Year to Everyone in the Amber Valley Area!

2017 was an interesting year for the property market across the UK, with the Government Housing White Paper in February emphasising the need for more homes, the changes to Buy to Let Tax Relief which were announced in the Spring Budget, the Bill for the Tenant Fee Ban was finally released and we will be inching closer to Brexit as the year progresses. Many of these changes will begin to impact the property market during 2018 and their effects will be felt by many in the property industry as well as landlords and homeowners.

Even with these expected changes however, confidence in the property market remains, and is particularly high in Scotland and the East Midlands, where 79% of respondents to a survey completed by Zoopla said they anticipated that house prices would rise by April 2018. Predictions are that property prices will continue to rise until 2019 seeing a steady increase across the country over the coming year. There is an expectation however that these increases will be lower than those previously enjoyed over the past year, with some property market analysts suggesting only a 1.5% increase in 2018.

Property prices in the East Midlands overall during the past year have risen by 2.62%, with Rutland standing out as the county with the best growth of just over 15% during 2017. Derbyshire takes second place with a 7.15% increase, closely followed by Northamptonshire (6.26%) and Nottinghamshire (6.21%).

With reference to our local area I thought I’d take a closer look at what changes have affected the property market through 2017. According to Zoopla statistics approximately 300 properties were sold in Ripley during 2017 with the current average value at around £167,950, resulting in a price rise of approximately 1.64% since 2016. Alfreton has seen over double that number of properties sold with the figure for 2017 at around 650, however, Alfreton has seen a decrease in property values over the past year with the average market value standing at approximately £152,000 resulting in an annual decrease of approximately 1.02%. The good news is that the Amber valley region as a whole has seen an increase in property prices with both Belper (5%) and Heanor (2.56%) enjoying steady increases throughout the year and this trend is predicted to continue into 2018.