Area guide: Sail away down south

The beautiful south, so they say, and there’s a lot going for a certain stretch of coast in Hampshire. As well as being maritime cities and urban attractions in their own right, Southampton and Portsmouth both provide ferry links to the Isle of Wight, which is having a renaissance. In this area guide, we look at market trends in this trio of property hotspots.

Southampton

Seafaring Southampton is a city proud of its past, present and future, with an ongoing bid to become the UK City of Culture in 2025. “Southampton is unique in terms of its surroundings and transport connections,” commented Nicholas Mendes from mortgage broker John Charcol when speaking to the Southern Daily Echo. He cited our ‘new normal’ – in which a one-hour commute to London is no longer the nirvana – for driving people to Southampton, and for driving prices up.

According to the latest figures from Rightmove, sold prices in the city rose 4% in 2021 compared to the previous year, and were 10% up on the 2019 peak of £247,441. The average property in Southampton now costs £272,550. This value is surpassed with ease in the city’s three most expensive streets, according to Zoopla. Expect to pay £757,480 in Calshot Court, Channel Way, £395,669 in Alcantara Crescent and in John Street.

Portsmouth

With its distinctive Spinnaker Tower and Gunwharf Quays shopping experience, Portsmouth enjoys a stunning reputation on the south coast and earlier this year, it was voted the second best place to live in the UK by website Nomad Nation. Recent property price rises paint a picture of growing popularity. Overall sold prices in Portsmouth were up 2% on the previous year, and up 13% on those seen in 2019, says Rightmove. Today, the average house costs £267,276 but there are pockets of Portsmouth where this figure is eclipsed.

A new set of interactive heatmaps released by the Government show where Portsmouth house prices are running hot. The three most valuable constituencies, in terms of bricks and mortar, are Cosham North (£375,000), Drayton and Farlington (£321,000), and Old Portsmouth and Southsea Common (£305,000).

Isle of Wight

So it may not be the White Isle as in Ibiza but the Isle of Wight has enjoyed a resurgence among holidaymakers. For many travellers during the pandemic, the ferry journey from either Portsmouth or Southampton was as ‘abroad’ as they’d get and it appears once they arrived on the island, they fell in love.

Property sales to those from the mainland are partly behind record house price rises that have been charted in recent months. In fact, the Land Registry noted values rises on the Isle of Wight had outpaced the average for the south east, with a 2% rise between December 2021 and January 2022. This contributes to an annual property price rise of 12.5%, with flats seeing the greatest value uplift – rising 8.4% over the last 12 months.

There are two towns on the island that have enjoyed a particularly strong property performance. When Rightmove compiled a list showing the 10 areas across the country where average asking prices had risen the most over a 12-month period, Cowes and Ryde both made the cut. Asking prices in the former location had soared by 20%, while there was a rise of 18% in the latter.

We have Viewbers located in Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, ready to assist sellers, investors, landlords and Airbnb owners. Ask us about our property visit, accompanied viewing and enable access services today.