Luxury home and flat sales soar amid house buying downturn

Thursday 22 February 2018

Over 30 luxury homes over £2million were snapped up last year, rocketing by nearly 75% in comparison with three years earlier.

The spike in high-value property sales saw 33 homes worth more than £2million bought in Jersey last year, compared with 19 in 2014.

Homes within the £1-1.5million bracket also increased - 59 were sold last year, up from 37 in 2014. This was a 11 fewer than the previous year, however, when 78 were purchased.

25 properties priced between £1.5-2million were sold in 2017.

Pictured: Key findings from the House Price Index's latest report. (Statistics Unit)

But while luxury properties saw a spike, the figures – released today in the States Statistics Unit’s quarterly House Price Index – showed that islanders favoured flats in 2017.

Sales of flats increased by more than a quarter, while house sales declined by 6% from 2016 to 2017.

A one-bedroom flat was priced at £227,000 on average in 2017, around £8,000 higher than 2016.

One-bedroom flats peaked at an average of £255,000 in early 2008, but an increase in turnover of lower-priced share transfer properties helped to drive down prices over the following years. Over the past five years, however, mean prices have gradually increased.

Pictured: Average house prices for different types of homes. (Statistics Unit)

Two-bedroom flats averaged at £355,000 last year – up £6,000 from 2016. It was the highest annual average recorded to date.

The majority of these – around 30% - cost their buyers £320,000 to £360,000, but one in 10 sold in the last quarter were £480,000 or more.

Three-bedroom homes were found to have undergone major fluctuations over the years – prices saw strong growth in 2006 to 2008, and remained stable thereafter. In 2011, they fell below £500,000 for the first time since 2007, but sat last year at around £556,000 on average – the highest ever recorded.

The mean price of a four-bedroom hit its highest ever quarterly high in late 2017 at £884,000. It constituted an increase of as much as £44,000 compared with the previous quarter, and was £60,000 higher than the annual average for 2016.

We have just published: Jersey House Price Index Fourth Quarter 2017. You can read the full report here: https://t.co/2i06gLe0N6 pic.twitter.com/Hyj2mJelpo

— Jersey Stats Unit (@JsyStats) February 22, 2018

Across the whole year, prices averaged £835,000.