HISTORIC RISE OF PORTSMOUTH HOUSE PRICES

In 1980, the average Portsmouth household income was just under £6,000 per annum and the average Portsmouth house price was £18,115; whilst today, the average Portsmouth household income is £33,066 per annum, yet the average household value is £241,900, meaning…

The average value of a Portsmouth home was 3 times more than the average household income in 1980. This ratio has now more than doubled.

And the problems don’t just stop there. There is a housing affordability crisis, along with a crisis of the availability of homes for people to live in. The political parties using housing as a ‘vote getter’ mentioned stats such as in 1981 there were 5.1 million council houses and today that stands at 1.6 million, however the number of housing associations homes (which are also social housing) has risen from 0.4m to 2.6m homes in that time, therefore, whilst there is a drop in social housing, it’s a net figure of 2.3m fewer social-rented houses, instead of the 3.5m in the paragraph above.

What some people seem to forget is whilst Portsmouth property values were lower, so were salaries. The true cost of affordability is the mortgage payments. Assuming someone bought an average property in 1980 and again in 2019, using a 95% mortgage at the prevailing mortgage rate of 17.8% in 1980 and the current 1.65%, today in Portsmouth the mortgage accounts for 33.9% of the household income (assuming a single income) compared to 51.7%

 

	Mortgage Monthly Payments in That Year’s Prices	Mortgage Monthly Payments in Today’s Prices	% of Monthly Salary
1980	£258.64	£1,271.64	51.73%
2019	£934.30	£934.30	33.91%