Who's going to buy them?

October 23, 2016 by Rob Kahl

Who’s going to buy them?

This week I had a pettion dropped into my office for me to sign and to encourage others to do the same. It was to save the car wash opposite The Grand at the end of the Broadway.

As i am sure some of you are aware, a recent application has gone in for another development of 20 apartments with basement parking. I thought it was rather optimistic to ask a local estate agent to sign a petition against a development that I could potentially be selling or at the very least, would give me more stock in the area to eventually sell and once again highlight the location to potential purchasers from far and wide.

Surely now though, we must be getting to saturation point with apartments? My concern now is who is going to be buying all of these properties?

The prices are high for these new developments. For example, a 2 bedroom apartment in the development opposite Chalkwell Park could set you back £425,000! This would price out most first time buyers and would not represent a good enough yield to tempt buy to let investors to give us some much needed rental stock. And there are just so many of them either being built at the moment or have had planning submitted.

Currently under construction are 9 near Bellinis, 17 at the former Portsmouth Stationers, 8 near The Arlington Rooms, 9 at the former Post Office and the 23 at Chalkwell park. That is 66 currently being built with plans afoot for the car sites at the top of Belfairs Drive and Darlinghurst Grove which could be at least another 50 more between.

This new development at the Broadway is obviously on top of the latest plans for The Grand which has 19 apartments and we are still to see when the Bell Hotel site will be re-released with another 30 or so apartments or the development in Leigh Road of 19 apartments opposite Chalkwell park that has taken so long.

So in a couple of square miles that equates to somewhere around 200 apartments! And that is just the ones I can think of off the top f my head, I know there are lots more; a shocking number I am sure you will agree but it pales into insignificance when taken in the wider context of the whole Southend Borough.

With the plans for Victoria Avenue, Southend seafront and Sutton Road, as well as a few other smaller sites, this means that the overall number of apartments either currently under construction or at the planning stage is around 5,000!!

If you have ever read one or more of my blogs you will always hear me banging on about how popular the area is and how people seem to be travelling from all over the country to our corner of Essex to take advantage of our happy area #HAPPYLEIGH on the coast but yet a short commute from the city, but I am genuinely concerned that there just wont be enough people that want to buy 5,000 flats?

Flats are perfect for first time buyers, people downsizing from larger houses or even people looking for a bolt hole they can lock up and leave whilst travelling abroad. I also will always be an advocate of long term buy to let investors prepared to put their money in bricks and mortar to assist the shortage of rental properties available, but there has got to be a limit to these type of buyer?

People on the first rung of the property ladder or the people just at the end downsizing leaves a huge gap in the middle for families looking for houses or just a small garden of their own. These type of buyers just aren’t being catered for at present. The only sizeable development I could find of 3 or 4 bedroom houses is at Ecko park, the old Lloyds building opposite Southchurch Park near the sewerage works (nice!).

Inevitably the influx of such a large number of apartments is going to keep prices down and the potential buyer is going to be spoilt for choice; they can shop around for the best deal, incentive or bargain. But this could have a detrimental affect on the cost of houses in the area, as inevitably, the first time buyer once happy with an apartment looks for something bigger with more bedrooms and garden.

If they aren’t available in the same sort of numbers and more and more people fight to buy that type of thing then it is a simple supply and demand effect and prices will rise.

We are already seeing this in Leigh where young couples with families desperate for houses in the popular school catchment areas of West Leigh, North Street or Chalkwell are having to pay over £500,000 for a 3 bedrock terrace house south of the London Road near the Broadway, over £600,000 for a 3 bedroom semi detached house on the Marine Estate or even over £700,000 for a 4 bedroom semi detached house in Chalkwell. I do hope that I not coming across like a NIMBY?

>I am very much not anti-progress and love some of the designs of the new apartments and exciting developments in central Southend. My only concern is that there is a balance of the type of property available. If planning is only given or it is the only viable option for developers to build small, first time buyers flats then that’s what we are going to get and the area will be full of young guys and girls just starting out on the property ladder. This is great for them but also any area thrives on a diversity of type of person and age.

One of the attractions of Leigh on Sea at the moment is all the different ages of the residents and the eclectic mix of shops, restaurants and bars that go about trying to cater for the different groups. If this is lost, the area will soon change and all of the shops will be turned in to bars pumping out music (god, I am old! Is this what the youth do?) or the other extreme of, well, im not sure what the more mature client do in their spare time.

So in conclusion, sorry I am not going to sign the petition against the new car wash apartments because I am extremely pro development for obvious reasons, but rather than just throw it in the bin immediately I did deliberate on my decision.

I would very much like some diversity in the new housing locally so that we can cater for all types of buyers of all ages and keep our fabulous eclectic mix of properties and people.

Thsi article is by Rob at Scott & Stapleton

Tel: 01702 471155 

To read all of Rob's previous blog's, please click the link https://www.leigh-on-sea.com/blog/tag/property.html