How London drives up our house prices

Giles Lawton, head of residential sales at Summertown-based agents Savills, says the “massive” price growth is fuelled by wealthy families coming to Oxford for private schools.

The easy commute to London means it’s a magnet for homeowners in the capital, who move out to get more for their money.

He said: “The Oxford market was pretty much untouched throughout the credit crunch, particularly period family homes. Houses near the top private schools and with an easy London commute are particularly popular.

Our top stories

“Prices are still rising and are higher than they were before the slump.”

The average house price of a house in Oxford – as opposed to a property, which also includes flats – is even higher at £395,000.

Charity worker Paul Roberts and his wife Tori Ray, a communications adviser for Oxfam, would have liked to buy near Magdalen Road, where they were renting a two-bedroom flat for £950 a month. But sky-high prices in the city pushed them out to Faringdon and now they spend 45 minutes to an hour each way driving in and out of Oxford.

In the car with them is their 16-month-old son Finlay, who is dropped off at a nursery on the way.

Mr Roberts, 31, head of employment for Aspire, which helps people back to work, said: “Renting is becoming more expensive, as agents are forever putting up their fees.

“We are both working full time and have been saving hard for a long time to get together a deposit.

“Five years ago, we might have afforded to buy a home in Oxford but not now.

“As a family, we had to look for a bigger place but it was impossible to find a two or three-bedroom house in our price range.

“Houses on the street where we were renting cost half a million pounds.

“Faringdon is one of the few areas we could afford, which is why we moved here last month.

“We like our new house but tackling the commute every day is pretty stressful.”

Mr Roberts added: “You are stung both ways, because you can’t afford to live in Oxford but are penalised when you move out, because the traffic is so diabolical.”

Mark Charter is the head of Carter Jonas’s Oxford office in Summertown. He said: “House prices have absolutely gone up significantly in certain Oxford hot-spots.

“Everybody is acutely aware of that.”

He added: “This is not being driven by local people, it is being driven by London. It is London wealth and London incomes.

“People are moving out of London and the high-value commuter areas on the fringe, and Oxford offers the best of both worlds.

“It’s cosmopolitan, with a mix of arts and culture, yet you’re within an hour of Heathrow. It’s a fairly magical combination.”

Dan Onion, director of Thomas Merrifield, an independent Oxfordshire estate agent company, said: “Of course prices have gone up.

“Pretty much everything we sell is at a record price.”

Rising rents put everyone in the same boat

IT’S not just buyers being squeezed out of the city, those who rent are in the same boat.

With up to 10 people chasing every flat or house, the cost of renting is going up.

Savills’ In Numbers report found the cost of renting in Oxford has jumped by 15 per cent during the past five years and will go up by another 21 per cent in the next five.

CHALLENGES: Left, Roger Harding of housing charity Shelter

Tenants are usually asked for a month’s rent in advance plus a deposit of four to six weeks’ rent, which can add up to thousands of pounds.

Gill Tishler, director of the Citizens Advice Bureau in Oxford, said: “The impact of very high house prices in Oxford inevitably has a knock-on impact on the level of rents, so for those who cannot afford to buy, private renting becomes equally unaffordable. The people we see who are in the private rented sector are facing huge challenges in finding accommodation they can afford in homes that are of a decent standard.

“They often have to find additional money for fees and charges from letting agencies.

“If they do find somewhere they can afford, the chances are it will be with very little security of tenure.”

Roger Harding, director of communications at housing charity Shelter, said: “House prices are continuing to spin out of control and the result is that scores of young people and families in Oxford are watching their dreams of a stable home slip further out of reach.

“However hard they work or save, many are being left with no choice but to remain in their childhood bedrooms or bring up children in unstable and expensive rented homes – and these figures show that things are only set to get worse.

“To truly give both current and future generations a chance, we desperately need politicians to commit to stabilising rollercoaster house prices by building the affordable homes they are crying out for.”

And add in the better rail links...

Prices in some areas of Oxford are expected to shoot up further, as better rail links to London become available.

Water Eaton’s Oxford Parkway station is due to open next year near Kidlington and will mean it will be possible to reach London’s Marylebone station in less than an hour on the Chiltern Line.

This is expected to push up the cost of housing there, with prices in the village already rising.

And in 2016, faster services to Paddington, following the electrification of the Great Western railway line between London and Bristol, are expected to send up Didcot area prices.

AVERAGE HOUSE PRICES FOR OXFORD

• 1998: £124,019
• 2002: £288,247
• 2006: £220,924
• 2010: £341,296
• 2014: £395,000

Source: Land Registry/ONS/Oxford Mail

• Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.