The meteoric rise of Jersey house prices
The latest numbers from Statistics Jersey shows an incredible rise of house prices in the last couple of decades, with house prices at an all time high, on par with London.
Jersey house prices have risen by seven per cent in 2018 and are now around £100,000 higher than the Guernsey average.
With prices growing steadily over the last 5 years, those with property are finding themselves at an advantage, but first time buyers are struggling to get onto the ladder, with a larger increase in house prices over average earnings. Yet it doesn’t seem like the property boom is stopping any time soon, with turnover of house sales still increasing.
Among the key findings in the latest house price index for quarter 4 of 2018 are:
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All property types saw an increase in mean price on the corresponding quarter of 2017 and generally remained at levels greater than seen throughout 2017
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The turnover of properties was 14% higher than the previous quarter and 20% higher than in the corresponding quarter of 2017
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The bigger your home, the more the property price has increased. A 4 bed house has seen an average increase of £236,000 over the last decade, while a 2 bed house has only seen an average increase of £56,000
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Jersey prices are around double the UK average and on a par with London.
The figures show that the four-quarter rolling average – which aims to iron out fluctuations by averaging the quarterly prices across the whole year – is the highest it has been in a decade.
Dan Edmunds from Statistics Jersey said the increase in property prices – particularly in flats – had probably stemmed from the number of high-quality new developments coming onto the market in recent times.
The average property price in Jersey is now on par with London while Guernsey’s average – which is measured in a slightly different way to Jersey – is around £100,000 less.
Mr Edmunds said: ‘The cost of housing in general in Jersey is quite a bit higher.
‘It wasn’t that long ago that Guernsey was slightly higher [than Jersey]. Now we are substantially higher than theirs.
‘We have seen a seven per cent rise on this time last year – Guernsey has gone the other way. Jersey is seeing broadly one per cent population growth each year while Guernsey seems to be relatively static. That is reflected in terms of the number of new builds, the demand on houses and the price.’
The House Price Index is released by Statistics Jersey each quarter.