The UK housing market has been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic- but does Blackburn follow the trend?

Prices have fluctuated, the stamp duty holiday was introduced and the coronavirus pandemic forced us to reassess our living situation.

A representative of Stones Young Sales and Lettings (Blackburn-based estate agent) said the biggest change to the local housing market has been the demand for properties with gardens and driveways.

She added: “Given the area's high proportion of terraced properties with limited outdoor space and many households owning more than one vehicle there has been an increased demand in the already popular semi-detached/detached sector.”

The company have also witnessed an increase of properties coming to the market- and it turn an increase in demand.

She explained: “This, together with the stamp duty holiday has led to many houses currently achieving the asking price and above. The housing market remains very buoyant across all sectors within the area.”

Here are some facts and statistics about Blackburn's property market in 2020- and how it compares to the rest of East Lancashire.

The number of housing transactions

According to Land Registry, 960 property transactions have taken place this year compared to 1764 last year- this is a decrease of 45 per cent (January to November).

Research by We Buy Any Home also found that house sales enquiries in Blackburn decreased by 46.3 per cent this year.

They also found that the most common type of seller was a ‘making do pensioner’.

As you would expect, lockdown and the coronavirus pandemic will reduce the number of house viewings and property purchases made in a given month.

This is exactly what these figures (sources from Land Registry) suggest; 2020’s property transaction figures were consistently lower than those in 2019 once the pandemic was announced in March.

In January and February, property transaction figures were higher than the year before and began to peak in March.

Property transactions dropped by 59 per cent between April and March and didn’t start to rise again until the summer months.

In July, coronavirus restrictions began to relax- and this is reflected in Blackburn’s property market.  

Between June and August, property sales increased by 51 per cent and people began to explore the property market in Blackburn once again.

However, this success didn’t last long as property transactions dropped by 50 per cent between August and September.

House prices in Blackburn with Darwen

Gráinne Gilmore, Head of Research at Zoopla (real estate company), said the housing sales market is set to have it’s busiest Christmas period in more than a decade- hence the increase of property price.

She explained: “As a result of the increased demand and activity in the market, average UK house price growth is currently up 3.5% on the year, and could rise to 4% growth by the end of December.”

House prices in Blackburn with Darwen are no exception and they have also seen a significant increase this year- but this has fluctuated on a monthly basis.

At the start of the year house prices in Blackburn with Darwen in 2020 were higher than they were at the start of 2020.

However, at the start of lockdown in March, this figure decreased by 2 per cent between March and April.

Like many other parts of the UK, Blackburn experiences a mini housing boom during the summer months.

Between May and August, house prices increased by 9.7 per cent and this figure continued climbing into September.

September 2020 property prices were per six per cent higher than those in September 2019.

How do Blackburn house prices compare to other parts of East Lancashire?

Out of the six East Lancashire areas, Blackburn with Darwen has the third highest property prices.

When you compare January’s property price to September’s, Rossendale has seen the biggest price increase (7.8 per cent).

However, while other regions were seeing a summer price inflation, the average property price in Rossendale saw their lowest average price of the year in July (£139,883).

Blackburn saw the second highest increase (6.5 per cent increase) followed by Ribble Valley (5.6 per cent increase)

However, not every area in East Lancashire follows the trend- properties in Hyndburn have actually decreased in average price since September (2.6 per cent), along with Burnley (1.2 per cent) and Pendle (0.09 per cent).