Richmond Borough Property Price Journey in 2024

It has been fairly topsy turvy, to tell the truth. There has been a lot to contend with: fun stuff, like the Men’s European Championships and the Olympic Games; economic stuff, like high interest, stubborn inflation and sticky mortgage rates; political stuff, like a General Election called early, and a Budget that left markets feeling a little peaky; international stuff, like a US Presidential Election, a land war in Ukraine and continued conflict in the Middle East; existential stuff, even, like climate change induced heatwaves, flooding and hurricanes…

As far as the property market goes, some of these things were distractions, good and bad; some caused financial anxiety; and some have had a direct impact on property values, by affecting the cost of borrowing or the value of the pound.

So how has the property market behaved nationally and locally in 2024, and what does that mean for you as a homeowner or if you are buying a property in Richmond, Teddington and Twickenham?

To understand it, let us first go back in time – back to the turn of the century in fact, as property values in England began to soar…

Property prices did indeed climb dramatically over the course of the past two and a half decades, with the average property value increasing from £85,000 in the year 2000, to £291,000 today – a 242% increase, but importantly an increase rising ahead of any increase in average salaries. Back then, a property would cost around 6.4 times the average salary, but now it looks to be around 8.3 times the average salary. 

242% sounds like what it is, I’m sure: a large jump. 

However, that increase in terms of relativeness to salary may sound modest. In real terms though, that 1.9% ‘price against salary’ difference is actually a 30% increase. 

It reflects the way that the base rate and therefore mortgage rates have changed. Coming out of the 1990s, recovering from recession and the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis, when the Bank of England base rate peaked at 12%, the base rate had fallen to 6% by the turn of the century – but it had only just got there. House prices therefore were stabilising. The Base Rate dropped further as we headed into the 2000’s, bottoming out at 3.5% in 2003, and so along with the introduction of self-certified mortgages and 100% loan to value mortgage products, property values were just on the point of exploding – which they did, until (and in large part contributing to) the next financial crisis precipitated by the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2007, leading to recession in 2008. That is when things really changed, with the Bank of England cutting the base rate to 0.25%, and mortgage rates (eventually) following suit. After two years of credit-crunch, a combination of severely pent-up demand, a lack of housing leading to competition amongst buyers, and combined with an ability for people to borrow more and to extend mortgage terms for longer, house prices again shot up. 

But that picture may have changed (more on that, later).

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The Richmond property market has seen a similar story-arc, although in truth it has not fared quite the same as that national picture over the same period, in terms of property prices. The average house price in Richmond in the year 2000 was around £225,000, and today that sits at around £748,000, according to the Office for National Statistics; OK – obviously a much greater ‘pound coins’ increase than the national story, but as far as percentages go, around a 224% increase as opposed to 242%. Still significant, of course, especially when we consider that the average salary in Richmond is around £56,000; that makes property values here thirteen times an average salary – and therefore less affordable to local people, in that sense, than they are in other parts of the country. 

The signs are there that the wider, national property market has felt a bit of a sting over the course of 2024, with house prices beginning to come down. Richmond hasn’t escaped that. The average sale value here has fallen from around £760,000 this time last year, to the £748,000 mark now – a drop of 3%, showing a fairly similar trend to that seen across London and other parts of the South East.

Property prices have fallen here, but only slightly, relatively speaking – and so given the backdrop of everything else that has been going on which has affected the market, Richmond homeowners can forgive themselves for feeling perhaps cautiously optimistic as we head into the New Year.

Then again, whilst property values are a bit of an obsession in this country, they do not actually tell the whole story. Perhaps they simply interest those who are in charge of writing the news. 

To us, they are just one piece of the puzzle, and realistically our goal is not to drive prices ever upwards. Prices do tend to go up over time, but when they come down it does not mean that a move should be off the cards.

What matters to us as Richmond Estate Agents is helping people like you to move home – at the right value, but especially for the right reasons and at the right speed. It is about understanding needs and wants, nailing the former and achieving as much of the latter as we possibly can – and that is why at Bartlett and Partners we continue to work in the bespoke, personalised way that we do in order to achieve that. 

Property prices do not always go up – but people do always move home. If you are wondering what your property value has done and whether that affects your plans, let’s book a consultation. We can provide an up to date assessment of your property, if you need to sell one, and explain what a move will look like – even helping you with a cost of moving exercise to understand what mortgage you may need, in order to make the move you are hoping to make.

It has been a topsy turvy kind of a year – but where there is a will, there’s a way, and at Bartlett and Partners we have all the best will in the world. 

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