Prospective homeowners queue for hours as new Waterside houses quickly sell out

A large group of people queued outside a Derry estate agents this week as a new batch of houses went up for sale. The development of new properties are currently being built in the Belt Road area of the Waterside. The first batch of the houses were being sold on Tuesday morning at the Carlisle Road branch of Donnybrook Estate Agents. It is understood that some people had queued from 8.30pm on Monday night. All the first batch of houses were sold within several hours on Tuesday. The quick sale of the houses is being seen as a huge vote of confidence in the local housing market. Between 2005 and 2007, Northern Ireland house prices reached a peak and doubled before a collapse that saw prices plummet to their lowest in 2013. There are currently more than 500 properties for sale in the Derry area, ranging in price from £45,000 to £650,000. There are also 121 new properties being built in the Derry area at Gortin Meadows, Newbuildings, Thornhill Park, Oak Country Manor in Crescent Link, Ard Grange Close, Victoria Gate, Bridgewater, Birch Hill, Bayview Gardens, Ebrington Par, Willowcroft in Feeny Village, Barley Fields in Culmore, Church Bra, Little Hamptons, Butler’s Wharf, Manor Hill, Tullyarden Square and Talbot Park. Speaking to the Derry News, Professor Paddy Gray, Professor of Housing at the Magee campus of Ulster University, said he believes that there is ‘more confidence’ now in buying since the property crash in 2007. “I can’t say there is a surge but things are certainly going in the right direction,” he said. “Those people who were nervous about getting on the property ladder and buying are afraid to lose out and are showing more confidence. “There has been a slight increase in house prices in Derry and in the north west, marking the interest in buying property.” Professor Gray added that a number of other factors, including historically low interest rates, the rise in the price of rental properties and ‘banks relaxing slightly’ in their approach to granting mortgages, are combining to make buying a property a more attractive option and are helping the market. “There has been a measured response; the market is responding and going in the right direction but I don’t see the prices falling further. “This will also help people with negative equity who owe more than their house is worth. “If it continues, we may well see a surge,” he added. Ulster University in partnership with the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and Progressive Building Society recently collated a housing price index It analysed the performance of the Northern Ireland housing market during the third quarter of 2016 against the same period in the previous year. The finding across the board for Northern Ireland was that prices on properties for sale had risen. The report stated: “Terraced/ townhouses (£97,767), as in the previous survey, show the greatest rate of increase in average sale price over the year, up by 10%, suggesting a strong first-time buyer market. “Likewise, the apartment sector (£118,909), up by 5.3%, and semi-detached houses (£148,493) up by 5.8% have experienced a high rate of annual growth pointing towards strong demand in these entry points to the housing market. Detached houses (£252,228), up by 6%, also have experienced a significant rate of annual price increase. “In contrast, detached bungalows (£178,537) and semi-detached bungalows (£113,964) have the slowest rate of annual price increase, 3.7% and 1.4% respectively.” However, the report found that the region of Derry and Strabane, although improving, was doing so at a slower rate mainly due to lower than average prices in detached houses and bungalows. When this is taken into account, terraced, semi-detached and townhouses have higher than average prices throughout the course of the year but a faction lower per quarter. The effect of Brexit was also suggested as a reason for a quarterly decline. The report stated: “In the Derry/Strabane market, the average price (£99,397) is lower over the year, by 9.2% largely due to a significant quarterly decline of 6.8%. “It has been speculated that the impact of Brexit could be more acutely felt in border areas, such uncertainty may partly explain this quarterly decline. “However, from the analysis of price levels it is apparent that the much lower average price for detached houses (£117,338) and detached bungalows (£121,152) have impacted on the overall market. “Indeed, whenever these effects are allowed for both terraced/townhouses (£63,934) and semi-detached houses (£112,033) have higher average prices over the year though slightly lower over the quarter, in the case of the latter only by 0.9%.”