Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

More documents

Recommendations

Info

$Converted from C:\PCSPDF\PCS44459.TXT - Westminster City ...$

Westminster – Housing Needs Assessment 2006i) The information can only usefully give a guide to average prices. For a Housing NeedsSurvey we take the view that it is necessary to estimate the minimum price for whichdwellings in satisfactory condition are available.ii) No information is available about the condition of the dwellings whose price is beingobtained. Clearly a property which needs major repairs is unlikely to be suitable for a firsttimebuyer with a limited budget, even if the initial price is relatively low.iii) A more serious limitation of this source is that records are kept by property type (i.e.detached, semi-detached, terraced, flat) and not in terms of the numbers of bedrooms. Thisinformation is, in our view, essential to provide an accurate assessment of need.iv) The Land Registry data cannot produce information about rental levels, which again oughtreally to be considered in carrying out a satisfactory analysis of affordability. There may bea small, but significant, number of households who cannot afford to buy market housing butwho could afford suitable private rented housing. The affordability of such householdscannot be adequately considered using only sale price information.Despite these drawbacks the information available is certainly of interest to give some feel to thelocal context of property prices, and more specifically to provide comparison between prices indifferent areas.A1.6 Estate agents survey: MethodologyThe methodology employed to find purchase and rental prices takes the following steps:i) We establish the names and telephone numbers of local estate agents. This includes wellknown national estate agents as well as those operating specifically in the local area(allowing for good comparative measures of smaller and larger agencies). The estate agentsselected are intended to be those dealing primarily with housing at the lower end of themarket (e.g. not specialist agencies dealing with up-market properties)ii) These are then contacted by telephone and asked to give a brief overview of the housingmarket in the City - including highlighting areas of more and less expensive housingiii) The questioning takes a very simple form (this tends to improve efficiency withoutjeopardising results - people often lose interest when asked a series of detailed questionsand quality of response is diminished). All agents are asked ‘in their opinion’PAGE 168
Appendix A1 Further property price information‘What is the minimum and average price for a one bedroom dwelling in goodcondition (i.e. not needing any major repair) and with a reasonable supply (not oneoff properties occasionally coming onto the market)?’iv) This process is repeated for 2, 3 & 4 bedroom dwellingsv) The same questions are then asked about private rented accommodationvi) Once several estate and letting agencies have been contacted, the results are tabulated andaverages calculated to give an accurate estimation of minimum and average purchase andrental prices in the City. Any outlying values are removed from calculations.vii) The estimated purchase and rental prices are then inserted into the analysis to estimate thenumbers able to afford a dwelling depending on the minimum number of bedrooms that thehousehold requires.A1.7 Land Registry dataThe Land Registry compiles information on all residential land transactions. Analysis of this data ismade available for recent quarterly periods, for geographical areas including Council areas, andmore highly disaggregated data postcode areas, and by four main dwelling types.This data is thus very versatile, and can potentially provide a valuable picture of housing marketbehaviour in quite specific detail. However, an eye needs to be kept on the size of sample whenusing disaggregated data for smaller areas and/or periods.We used the data to provide several useful views of the housing market in and around Westminster.These are considered below.A1.8 Comparing prices in neighbouring areasThe Land Registry data can be used to show how prices in Westminster compared to those innearby and adjoining local authority areas. The table below shows average sale prices for the LocalAuthorities adjoining Westminster (from the most recent quarter available from the Land Registry).PAGE 169
Page 1:
CITY OF WESTMINSTER2006 HOUSING NEE
Page 4 and 5:
Westminster - Housing Needs Assessm
Page 6 and 7:
Page 8 and 9:
Page 10 and 11:
Page 12 and 13:
Page 14 and 15:
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Page 20 and 21:
Page 22 and 23:
Page 24 and 25:
Page 26 and 27:
Page 28 and 29:
Page 30 and 31:
Page 32 and 33:
Page 34 and 35:
Page 36 and 37:
Page 38 and 39:
Page 40 and 41:
Page 42 and 43:
Page 44 and 45:
Page 46 and 47:
Page 48 and 49:
Page 50 and 51:
Page 52 and 53:
Page 54 and 55:
Page 56 and 57:
Page 58 and 59:
Page 60 and 61:
Page 62 and 63:
Page 64 and 65:
Page 66 and 67:
Page 68 and 69:
Page 70 and 71:
Page 72 and 73:
Page 74 and 75:
Page 76 and 77:
Page 78 and 79:
Page 80 and 81:
Page 82 and 83:
Page 84 and 85:
Page 86 and 87:
Page 88 and 89:
Page 90 and 91:
Page 92 and 93:
Page 94 and 95:
Page 96 and 97:
Page 98 and 99:
Page 100 and 101:
Page 102 and 103:
Page 104 and 105:
Page 106 and 107:
Page 108 and 109:
Page 110 and 111:
Page 112 and 113:
Page 114 and 115:
Page 116 and 117:
Page 118 and 119:
Page 120 and 121:
Page 122 and 123:
Page 124 and 125:
Page 126 and 127: Westminster - Housing Needs Assessm
Page 226 and 227:
Page 228 and 229:
First Surveys MarketResearch13 Darw
Page 230 and 231:
A12. Where do you and your partner
Page 232 and 233:
D SPECIAL NEEDSD1. Do you or any of
Page 234 and 235:
edroom(s)F5. How many bedrooms woul
Page 236 and 237:
a) b)Like ExpectDetached house.....
show all

Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?