Chester, Blackpool, Oldham and Wigan among top five repossession hotspots, but Greater London has problem too
The north-south divide in home repossessions is the widest it has been for six years and four of the UK's top five "repossession hotspots" are in north-west England a new study has found.
Chester, Blackpool, Oldham and Wigan are among the areas with the highest proportion of homeowners at serious risk of losing the roof over their head, according to the research, carried out by chartered surveyors e.surv.
But the analysis said it was "not as simple as purely north and south" and that two areas within Greater London – Romford and Croydon - also featured in the repossessions top 10, with Ilford and Enfield not far behind, despite all the publicity about rocketing house prices in and around the capital.
E.surv's researchers analysed Ministry of Justice figures for court-ordered repossessions in the year to 30 June 2013, plus the company's own data, and found there were 3.2 repossessions per 1,000 households in the north, compared with 2.4 per 1,000 in the south. A spokesman said this was the largest gap since the onset of the financial crisis.
But Chester tops the table of hotspots by a substantial margin, with 8.4 repossessions per 1,000 households– three times the UK average of 2.8 per 1,000. In second place was Blackpool, with 4.5 per 1,000, while Oldham (4.3 per 1,000) and Wigan (4.2 per 1,000), both in Greater Manchester, took fourth and joint fifth place respectively. In the north-west England overall, eight out of 10 towns (79%) had above the UK average number of repossessions.
Lancaster, Liverpool and Carlisle were the only towns in the north-west region to have lower than the average number of repossessions, according to the study. But Carlisle was named the place that had seen the biggest annual increase in the rate of repossession, at 37%. This put it ahead of locations such as Taunton in Somerset, Brighton and Reading, where the figures were 34%, 30% and 27% respectively.
Romford in north-east London hd the third highest proportion of repossessions, 4.4 per 1,000 households, while Croydon was in joint sixth place with 4.1.
Richard Sexton, director of e.surv, said: "House prices may be high in the capital, and the labour market may be stronger, but in such densely populated areas, there remain borrowers who are struggling. Many borrowers have seen their finances slowly eroded by high inflation and rising living costs. This has been particularly potent in the expensive capital, where less affluent borrowers – those who could only just afford to buy – have been badly affected."
He added that on a national level repossessions were falling as mortgages became cheaper, wages slowly picked up and the labour market showed more vitality. For the UK as a whole, repossessions fell 17% during the 12 month period, with 66,544 repossession orders in 2012-13, as opposed to 77,856 in 2011-12.
But Sexton said that in regions such as the north-west and Yorkshire, wages were recovering more slowly and there were fewer jobs on offer. "As a region, the north has traditionally depended on public sector jobs, but a squeeze in public sector funding has led to loss of jobs for many, and very slow pay increases for others. Pay increases that are consistently below the rate of inflation have further tightened household budgets, and caused many to fall behind on mortgage repayments.
"There is still a long way to go before the northern property market returns to its pre-recession health, and all the while the north is still playing catch-up, and falling further and further behind the south."
Top 10 repossession areas
First figure refers to repossession per 1,000 households and the second, in brackets, the total repossessions in year to 30 June 13
Chester: 8.4 (961)
Blackpool: 4.5 (570)
Romford: 4.4 (936)
Oldham: 4.3 (829)
Wigan: 4.2 (541)
Luton: 4.2 (565)
Bradford: 4.1 (1,002)
Doncaster: 4.1 (1,356)
Croydon: 4.1 (644)
Northampton: 3.8 (966)
Source: e.surv
No comments:
Post a Comment