City Planner
Samer Bagaeen MRTPI FRICS. The average Brighton property
There is no doubt that there is a housing crisis in Brighton and Hove. If you are a regular reader of this column, then you will have followed the argument. If you are not, then in all likelihood, you will have felt the impact of the crisis.
The average property rent in Brighton these days is £1,437 pcm. Tenants across the city may also note local differences. Like it or not, we are a city of extremes and anything in between. The average property rent for a one bedroom property is £923pcm. It costs £1,348 for a two bedroom property and £1,835 for a three bedroom property. This goes up to £2,590 for a five bedroom property.
At any given time, the majority of properties on offer is made up of two bedroom flats. Even the buyers’ market is full of two bedroom flats. You can track this for yourself. Just go to Hove Lawns and run a ‘for sale’ property search. Very few houses are available. In some parts of the city, workers need to save for 100 years for them to afford to buy a home.
The average wage in the city is £23,000, average home is £350,000
The average wage in the city is around £23,000, whereas the average price of a home is £350,000. This is in part thanks to an influx of London commuters unable to afford homes in the capital and looking for a better quality of life.
Brighton and Hove city council says that it is doing what it can to build affordable homes in the city. What good though is an affordable home when you cannot afford a deposit!
So if you cannot afford Brighton and Hove, where can you go? If you look east, that leaves Peacehaven and Newhaven. The latter has plenty of homes and plenty of new ones in the pipeline. We’ll look at those another time.
