I'm not sure if there is anyone here who has been watching the market in Salisbury but I'd be glad of your thoughts if you have. We've been renting and saving for the last couple of years as the market was rising and then pretty stagnant for all of last year. There appears to have been a bit of a rise in prices over the last few months which is really frustrating as the housing stock here is pretty crap anyway! God knows how people are affording it, there's no source of industry here at all

Just be good to talk to anyone who's been watching or knows the market here

Basically, hosues are not selling in any great number.

Talk to an estate agent outside of work. The ones I know are really whinging - no sales, no commision, no money.

Better still, talk to a removal van man.

Nothing much has happened for last 5 year except a lot of houses being bought for BTL.
There is large amount of rental property in the centre. God knows how much in Bishopdown, Riding Meads/new estate between the hospital and the Downton road.

Going forward, Salisbury faces a lot of job cuts. Wilton this year. Blandford soon.

Look at Solstice Park for an idea of how much employment there is in SPx. A big industrial estate, sat empty for for its 3rd year.

£5 says Mahle (Highpost) shutsdown this year.

Out of curiosity visited the Archers Post development in Amesbury recently. No one in either of the sales offices and this on a saturday morning. When I asked who was buying in the development I was told it was in part people commuting to London - I very much doubt it - Salisbury overspill more likely. Interestingly the brochure for the development spoke of it being built to accomodate those working in Solstice Park, given that there only appears to be a handful of minimum wage jobs in Pizza Hut and Somerfields I fail to see the demand. Of course the reality is that its the only place in N Wilts that the council will allow houses to be built.

Solstice Park

'Move along now. All full of high qulaity jobs' All paying £30+K move along move along'

My curiousity is peaked by the supposed consolidation of public sector biologicals around Porton.

The new build in Amesbury is being flagged as required for the 'new' Porton.

Except ....


The bulk of jobs in available around Porton are less than £20K.

I just don't see anywhere near the 1000s jobs relocating.

Relocate to Amesbury??? For £20K job!!!! Get a squaddy being sick on your doorstep every weekend!!!!!


Nope. I won't happen.

People will go for the redundancy. Copmanies will move then start complaining why they cannnot recruit people for £15K

It's really interesting to hear your comments. We've been here for 4 years but I feel like I know very little about the area as I've had two kids since arriving and there hasn't been time for much else!

Anyway, I have been keeping an eye on the market since my first post and the initial flurry of properties SSTC seems to have died a real death. I think the same thing happened last year when we were contemplating buying. Several properties have now come back on to the market having been SSTC and several others have reappeared at a lower price. My view has swung back to this market being stagnant at the very best.

We will continue to wait and see.

While planning to view some properties shortly the EA asked my position, when I answered sold he asked "SSTC" no I said sold and cash in the bank, his reply "strike a light' struck me as an indication that the market is indeed very slow!

Due to long term plans to settle in Salisbury we have been actively looking at Salisbury recently. In the last few weeks there appears to have been a definite increase in properties selling at the asking price. Each time it is the predicatable houses i.e. decent houses in good locations. Other properties are sticking. My fear is that the inevitable consequence is that prices are creeping up. Question is do I wait?

Its Easter. Purely cyclical/wishful thinking.

Like everywhere else, in the medium/long term, housing in Salisbury is connected to jobs and wages.

Salisbury/S WILTS is in for a pretty turbulent time:

- FP job restructure (99% sure, look at Standard Life for the state of Life Ins.)
- Capita withdrawing. The Salisbury Capita site makes no sense
- Wilton land command leaving
- Blandford Camp closing.
- Total coring of Andover/B-stokes jobs.

Go to the library. Look at the Journal jobs ads for 2002. Look at the Job ads in this week.
Less Jobs; Less money.

Did you decide to buy? Things seemed pretty slow here but I've noticed with complete dismay that there appears to have been alot of movement over the last week. Even the crap that's been on for months seems to be SSTC. One house which we viewed two years ago and which sold for 200k was put on a few weeks back for 235k and if anything the current owners have vastly reduced the property's value by their abysmal taste. Despite a seemingly stagnant market, it is now sold SSTC.

I give up!

No, we came very close to making an offer but unexpectedly another buyer beat us to it with an offer of the asking price. Given that we couldn't afford this I was not too disappointed. I am now minded to wait until autumn which is a better time for us and will allow me to see how the market is heading. Given all the current sentiment I cannot see prices going up at all although I am not expexting much of a drop either. I have also looked north of Salisbury and continue to be surprised at the prices being asked for in Amesbury, Durrington etc many of these are inn my opinion totallly unrealistic - I also see the Archer's Gate site as being over-priced and wonder who on earth would pay over £440k for a larger house on such a development given the location and denisty the build. Whilst I foresee interesting times ahead I tend to agree with an EA who commented the Salisbury avoids the excesses of house price rise and falls.

As an update I have been watching a number of properties in Salisbury and this week several of them have dropped in value by significant amounts e.g. 325k to 299k. The reason of course is obvious with rising interest rates making it clear to even the most stubborn vendor that they will have to drop the price if they want a sale. I also suspect that this is the very clear advice that the EAs are given. I would also guess that an ever-increasing number of chains start failing as one of the buyers is bound to question his purchase. I am absolutely convinced that by the Autumn it will be obvious that it is a buyers market.

This is a timely post! I have just posted today about sealed bids on a house and I'm beginning to think this whole think is driving me mad!

The house we wanted is off the Castle road, a 1930s semi with original features but in need of work, and was on at 275. There are at least 2 others who've put in asking price offers (we didn't) and the EA wants to go to sealed bids.

It has made us really miserable because we weren't actively looking but have always thought that, if we saw somewhere we really liked, we would buy and get a fixed interest repayment mortgage over a long period and weather any storm. Now, we are faced with sealed bids and I just think we've got drawn into buying panic - amazingly easily done!

We haven't got substantial equity from a previous home, just savings, and we live a nice life within our means at the moment.

It is good to hear your report back a negative trend as it gives me hope that in saying no, we are not being the crazy folks our friends appear to take us for!

Try and talk to an estate agent outside of work, or better, talk to a secretary from an EA office.

You get a much different story. Transaction levels are so low now that the most EAs are having a bit of cash flow problems.


If (and a very big if) FP are bought by AXA/Flowers then you can expect the Salisbury site to be cored or even closed.

Even if FP are not taken over then it looks like they will need a rights issue to prop up the business. In which case. expect to see some cost saving.


There are very few employees in Salisbury or places commutable from Salisbury.

That is interesting info. Wish I knew an estate agent to talk to! The picture I get from people here is offers at asking prices and selaed bids. Certainly, on the face of it at least, the market appears to have been pretty buoyant over the last month or so with properties beig sold quickly and asking prices higher than last month. May be it's just a lot of pre-HIPs activity, but it has been unnerving.

Have just looked at the Land Registry figures on the BBC website for Wiltshire. The figures tell a startling story for N Wiltshire with a -25% reduction in selling prices! Salisbury is also only barely making gains. Given that this is for the last 1/4 this indicates that my believe that it will be a buyers market by the year end. I would love to confront an EA with these startling figures!!!


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/in_d...l/county103.stm

selling prices relativly level since 04.... must be the asking prices that are rising
http://www.home.co.uk/guides/house_prices_...sbury&all=1

It's not neceesarily just the asking prices on the increase.

We came back from a week's holiday yesterday and found that a house had come on the market in the area we like but that it was SSTC in one day. By pure coincidence, a friend happened to know the person who bought it and it went for 10k OVER the asking price. Again, this was a semi which needs about 20ks worth of work.

Salisbury is a very small place and other areas in the city are not moving at all. However, in other parts of town the competition seems ferocious.

Nightmare

As for Mahle (Highpost) shutting down 2007, you lost your bet it has been announced, (9th April 2008), that it will close September 2009

What's 18 months between friends????

I've not heard the news of Mahle. I was unable to google for anything. I'd be

Was the news in the journal? Or is it still an internal company annoucement?

My predictions- Mar 07 are pretty good, esp. considering they are pre NR and credit crunch.

The FP one still stands. In fact, I have revised my prediction downwards - FP's last result were terrible, and this is from someone
who was not expecting very much in the terms of profit/success from them.
Basically, it looks like FP have been losing 1000s on each policy sold since de-mute - they've been paying FAs ~30% commision.

The rights issue still stands - they have a £400M bond issue hole.

Flowers might walk.

The Salisbury site is mainly sales and marketing, which will go as FP have no future as a company writing new business.

Are we beginning to see sales falling through?

Property Bee seems to be reporting status changing stc to available more frequently although I'm not seeing that translate into significant price reductions.

And another thing, whilst I'm about it.

Does anybody know why the Charles Church development outside the airfield was change to Persimmon? I know they're part of the same group
but I though CC was the 'premier brand' division and persimmon was the ordinary brand.

I notice the've changed the housing mix. They've taken out the 1,5 & 6 bed places and just look like 2,3 & 4 bed places now.

Remember that most EAs have only had experience of a booming market and have yet to realise that a sale at a realistic price is better than no sale at all! We are still in the early stages of a market turn where vendors still think that they will get the same price for 'their' house as it might have got last summer. It will take time for expectations to change. The last big bust started in Late '88 and prices reached their lowest point in '94. These things take time to happen.

Hi I am new here but live in Salisbury and regarding the development at old Sarum I think CC realised that they would not be able to make the sales in the area ie. near to Partridge Way - their houses are more upmarket and exclusive to Persimmon and I have noticed that the board has changed from 1 bed to 4 bed houses rather than upto 6 bed houses. On another note I have been told that Persimmon have stopped any building there for the time being in the current market which is why it looks like nothing is happening.

Regarding Salisbury house prices - ridiculous. There are 2 markets operating in Salisbury at the moment (we have been monitoring property Bee for some time) and it seems that those houses above £375K seem to be selling but those under it are sticking apart from a few that are reasonably priced. I am not sure why this is the case apart from there are alot of affluent people around the area and maybe they are just circulating the money around the topend of the market but nowt much happening anywhere else. Seen some quite significan price drops too recently!

Bearing in mind salisbury average house prices are 9.7 times the average salary its about time they dropped (and yes I do own a house but can only see a drop as a good thing!)

Welcome to HPC Gemima. Everything I've seen under 375k goes from stc to available (probably down to mortgages). My assumption is that 375k plus is boomers who have paid off the mortgage in London downsizing to the God's Waiting Room.

You're right about the multiples being ludicrous but the mortgage drought will take care of that IMO.

I bumped into a local building contactor today, he said that all the work is drying up fast now. The rest of the Archers Gate development in Amesbury is being mothballed, ditto Old Sarum. Another building site in Tisbury has been abandoned.

Looks like it's about to get a whole lot easier to get tradespeople in again.

I paosted the original comment on this thread and have been watching the market on and off over the last year. I am glad that we did not buy.

However, has anyone else noticed that houses are still going on the market for ever increasing inflated prices? Castle rd area, Harnham and anywhere popular seems to be rising in asking prices even though nothing much is selling. I don't understand estate agents mentality here. Palmer Snell have already closed and the market seems very, very slow, yet properties continually pop up with an additional 10% on them over last year's prices. One crappy house in Castle rd area recently came on at +300k where houses in the same road went for 250 last year. Houses in that area were flying out the door last year but they aren't now. A house on one popular road in this area was on on for 275 earlier this year but this has dropped to 250. A friend who's looking in this area told me the estate agents have said the sellers will accept 230 for it. Demand has clearly dropped. So, what explains this madness?

I know that putting houses on the market for ludicrous asking prices generally means that they won't sell but Iaren't EAs just making life hard for themselves in the long term. They may want to get sellers on their books but they aren't likely to achieve sales with these vastly inflated prices given the current environment. Do they think they can just fool us all into believing the market is still rising?

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts

I didn't know that - you have just made my day!!! When I bought my place in 93 I had a magnificent budget of £50K. All the agents in Salisbury were most welcoming except Palmer Snell who just sneered at me - snotty barstewards.

I keep a watch on Rightmove for the west side of Salisbury but occassionally dip into central Salisbury - I have to agree that generally asking prices at the bottom end of the market don't seem to be coming down. Out further west there are now sporadic properties seriously well priced compared to everything else that go sold within a matter of days - I'm guessing from the type of properties involved that these are being sold off when old folks die, and the "out of area" next of kin are actually taking the advice of local agents and pricing to sell quickly. There's been one in Dinton recently (sorry no link, it's gone from Rightmove) that was asking £150K - atleast £70K less than everything comparable in the area, and an even bigger reduction in Tisbury (c £90-100k less than similar).

Most stuff is not shifting, there are minimal reductions (e.g. £485K to £479K - why bother - idiots), and stagnation.

Wanted to bump this as there's not been any comment about Salisbury in a while.

We're renting in southampton at present and hoping to buy in Salisbury last year (FTB'ers) but are waiting to see where the market goes. Keep waiting for prices on rightmove to come down but neither houses or asking prices seem to be moving yet.

Anyone else keeping an eye on this market?