Landlord Knowledge - Home of the Savvy Buy to Let Property Investor

Lessons in house values

Houses close to an Ofsted-rated ‘outstanding’ school are likely to command a premium price. And never more so than in Sunderland, it seems.

The financial comparison site Money.co.uk found that in this north-eastern city, average house prices were on average £50,000 – or 40 per cent – higher in areas with ‘outstanding ‘ schools. In Durham, the uplift was £61,000, or 32 per cent, and in Blackpool £85,000 or 30 per cent.

But not all ‘outstanding’ schools ensured premium house prices. In Wakefield, average prices close to such schools were actually £97,000, or 32 per cent lower than the average for the city. In Wolverhampton the average was £50,000 less, or 31 per cent, and in Watford £197,000 less or 22 per cent.

The area with the most ‘outstanding’ schools was found to be Kensington and Chelsea with 60 per cent of schools being rated ‘outstanding’. And that with the lowest number of ‘outstanding’ schools was the Isle of White which has no schools rated ‘outstanding’.

  • Research by online plumbing supply company Plumbnation suggests Manchester is the city that has experienced the sharpest rise in house prices over the last 20 years.

    There, the average price of property has gone up 331 per cent. Salford, Leicester, Kingston Upon Hull, Bristol, Stoke-on-Trent, Sheffield, Liverpool, Burnley follow (in that order), all having experienced property price rises in excess of 200 per cent.

    UK cities with the lowest rate of increase in property prices were Reading, Blackpool, Worcester, and Southampton, although all saw an increase of more than 100 per cent.