I noticed today that the new development down Union Lane is now being advertised by Cheffins rather than being sold direct by the building firm (David Wilson homes?). Construction finished a few months back now but the place is still mostly empty. By the standards of some of the other stuff going up at the moment (particularly on the Arbury Camp site) these houses are quite nice and in a fairly decent location. Anyone any views on whether they're just overpriced or whether this is some real sign of a slowdown?

There are a huge number of flats being built down the road at Lynfield Lane, so that may have some effect. I wonder whether those flats got any flooding last week? That site has been flooded before? As for the Union Lane ones, they do look slightly above bog standard but still look really dull. Where's all the imagination gone? I'd rather they just build in Victorian style again.

Not so far this year, it flooded in 2001 IIRC. The houses around there seem to have sold quite quickly too so I suspect the Union Lane ones are just overpriced.

Pretty large houses as it turns out:

http://212.50.188.108/cgi-win/vebra.cgi?de...1/OCTAV/41049/1

4-5 bedroom for £399,950

Agree they're dull, dull, dull. Like 3 student flats with an adjoining stairwell. Just imagine the asking price if they were remotely attractively designed!

£400k to live in Chesterton!

Lots of small rooms.....it's a bit like one of those hamster cages with all the add-on tubing.

I dont know, Id rather pay 400k to live there than more than double to live next to Addenbrookes gas works:

http://www.camstead.co.uk/quarter/house.php

Look at the prices.

25k change from one million for a 5 bed house with a 30ft sq garden, one garage, nice view of a gas works and over looked by 12 flats.

Just going to call Gringots to realise the funds.

Astounding, and two of them have been sold already!

Im gob smacked I really am.

I'd be interested to know how much of the Cambridge property is selling to individuals and not investment companies though. I know that much of the Belvedere and Levels developments are owned by the Chard Robinson who are fronted by Accent Property Management to let the flats. So I suspect that its the same across Cambridge.

I dont know if you guys have looked, but check out the prices of the "Orangery" on long road and the new flats on Queen Ediths as well, the prices are astronomical.

I wondered who Accent were. It's been interesting watching the rental prices for the stuff they're pushing in the various new builds next to the station being gradually dropped. Not much yield there but it doesn't seem to stop the money flowing!

400 grand for a hamster cagemid terrace house!!! WTF?
Even for someone on £40,000 P.A. that would be 10 times their salary....Is it some kind of wind up?

Pretty standard for Cambridge. Look at these:

http://www.tgresidential.com/Buy/Details.aspx?id=S12316
http://www.tgresidential.com/Buy/Details.aspx?id=S12344
http://www.tgresidential.com/Buy/Details.aspx?id=S11880

and that's just from one agent!

Hi Tonester.
Thanks for pointing those out to me. I'm lost for words!!!
I guess it's because I'm a northerner that it seemed like some overpriced joke....

Gobsmacking! I was looking at a few jobs in Cambridge, I am stunned at the prices. Having a quick look on rightmove I would guess the lowest anyone within 30 miles of Cambridge earns is 50k.

Phoney.

http://www.bidwells.co.uk/property/propert...hp?id=CAM070745
http://www.bidwells.co.uk/property/propert...hp?id=CAM070728
http://www.bidwells.co.uk/property/propert...hp?id=CAM070241
http://www.bidwells.co.uk/property/propert...hp?id=CAM070242
http://www.bidwells.co.uk/property/propert...hp?id=CAM060646

Some beauties here!

Now you are just winding me up!!!!
885 grand for an end terrace and 900 grand for a semi!!! LOL!!!!
I love this website as some of the things people write make me laugh so much!!!

What is going on there. 1/2 a million for a 2 bed flat?!?!?!?! I am clearly living a sheltered life in the north.

Phoney

15 years ago Cambridge was quite a cheap place to buy houses (about on a par with York at the time). Having said that, the flats above are at the top end of the local market - they're in a very nice location and are, compared to a lot of what's been built around there, well made and designed. There are a lot of well off people around Cambridge (+ the student children of seriously well off people of course) but I still can't figure out which ones would spend 500K on a flat when they could still get a fairly sizeable house in a nice area for the same. The last lot of houses on that site were 900K-1M each and sold pretty much as they were finished so the demand is certainly there.

I think that its really important to be cautious here and remember that investment companies who are selling shares in the markets are often responsible for the purchase of these flats at the top end and if they are buying several properties, god only know just what they are truly paying.

As a thinking point, my gf and I looked at the Belvedere flats which were marketed at the time for £360 for a 2bed. Although we both loved the design we were suitably shocked by the asking prices and upon seeing that, the estate agent offered us 50 grand off a flat. Bear in mind that was the first day they had met us, we are not wealthy people or at least dont look like we are the offspring of oil billionaires etc and they offered us that much off straight away. I said it was still too much and the response without hesitation was "how much wouldnt be too much?".

We walked away and thought about if anyone living there actually had paid the full asking price and more to the point, how many flats said sold that help to convince you that paying that much is fine because so are other people.

Interesting. How intrusive was the noise from the station and Hills Road once you were in the building? Even 310 seems like an enormous amount of cash for something that overlooks a really busy railway line and one of the most congested roads in the city. It also occurs to me that there must be a fair bit of noise from the Junction at certain times as well.

I understand the Junction is pretty well sound-insulated these days (disaffected youth outside notwithstanding) but the railway and road would definitely put me off. £310K is such a lot of money. Lest we forget.

I have to say I agree with you both, it is a huge amount of money and certainly too much for us to pay.

The building inside was stunning I have to say, very spacious flats and little noise from outside. With windows closed there wasnt a sound from the train station or passing trains. Obviously with windows open it was easy to hear the trains (but not the station PA) but then I currently live in long road a fair way from the railway line and I can still here trains with the window open. I suspect that there are very few parts of Cambridge that have non existent transport background noise.

On an asthetics note, what do you guys think of the Belvedere? At first I wasnt keen, but compared to the Triangle and parts of Rustat Road it wins my vote.

I like the look of the Levels next door but have to admit the Belvedere itself I find ugly.
Fair play to their window specs. The Environmental Health dept. and Planners must have got their way.

Long Rd. eh. What are the plans to help residents out when it closes this summer? Is Sedley Taylor Rd. the answer?

But nobody would be earning £40k and buying a first house that big.
It's a property ladder. So with £40k suddenly landed in your lap as a salary you'd be buying at about £160-200k... and in fact people earning £40k have probably worked up to that from £20k 10 years ago - and they bought something 10 years ago with an £80k mortgage that's probably now been repaid down to £55k and is "worth" £250k. Although they probably already traded up again 3-4 years ago. So they're only looking for £205k mortgage. And that is assuming one person. If you've got a couple on those wages.... sorted.

Long Road's always been dead posh ... I went to school there. It was always a road for top hospital consultants and posh types that commuted to the City (and I don't mean Mill Road, Cambridge)

I don't much care for the external appearance, it's too defensive for my tastes. Having said that though, what really counts is the internal appearance since that's what you spend most of your time looking at. Assuming they don't have air conditioning, I'm still inclined to think the station noise would be problematic in summer with the windows open. The Triangle looks shoddy to me, all those coloured boards and stuff are going to get very tatty very quickly. The new build on Brooklands Avenue is nice though but, again, incredibly pricey. Housing has never been one of Cambridge's strong points but at least it used to be relatively cheap (58K for a 3 bed terrarce on Thoday Street in 1993 when I moved there).

I have a mate who's a consultant cardiologist and the best he can afford is a largish victorian terrace around DeFreville Av. I think Long Road is well out of range for even really senior medics these days.

Yes the Levels and the Brooklands Avenue developments are nice and the white wooden boards of the Triangle and more recent blocks at Rustat Road will date horribly. Aparently the University was so angered by the cheapo look of those that they pressured the Council and Aswell Housing who are building CB1 near the station have been sent back to the drawing board. So thats good!

Wish I could remember Thoday Street costing 58k for a 3bed, I'd just started secondary school then and for first time buyers the market here is insanely expensive!

Look on the bright side, I'm starting to have trouble remembering it due to old age.... You're right about the FTB market in Cambridge. In fact, I'm not really sure there is one any more. A friend who's been working for a tech firm on the science park for decades recently came up with quite a good metric for the situation: how far away from the centre of Cambridge do the junior engineers buy their first property? It used to be most of them bought down Mill Road somewhere, then they got pushed back to Milton and Cherry Hinton, next Waterbeach and maybe Ely and, finally, places like Manea right out in the middle of nowhere in the fens.

The guys from the Cambridge removals firm we used a few months back told me that the girlfriend of a footballer (not certain who it was now) lives in the penthouse flat (wasn't it on sale for £1m?) at the Belvedere development as they had just helped her move in.

I would have thought they'd get a discount in order to bring some glamour to the development but if you look on houseprices.co.uk flat 1 was sold in Nov 06 for £1m (CB2 0NT).

Apparently it is nice and has a view of the botanic gardens on one side...although I agree the views in the other directions of the main road and railway line cannot possibly make up for this!

It's hard to imagine any footballer living in Cambridge that could afford that given the absolutely dire performance of the Us over the last few years! Must play for Histon or something.....

I heard that the servants for an Oil Billionaire's son met a friend of mine and told him they lived in the second flat down to serve their master/employer in the PH.

What next will the rumour mill bring up I wonder...

http://www.tgresidential.com/

Look Tuckers have a new slogan "The Art of selling property".

Yes I've always considered Estate Agents as sort of modern day impressionists.

Each week I check Rightmove for Cambridge and have a look at the number of new build entries.

Here's the stats:
Date no. %age of total
15/03/07 64 19.3
24/03/07 63 17.5
29/03/07 61 17.1
05/04/07 63 16.4
12/04/07 63 16.8
19/04/07 68 17.3
26/04/07 76 19.9
03/05/07 78 19.5
10/05/07 79 18.9
17/05/07 78 17.6
24/05/07 84 17.7
31/05/07 88 16.9
07/06/07 89 17.0
14/06/07 87 16.5
21/06/07 88 16.9
28/06/07 90 17.5
05/07/07 103 19.9
13/07/07 96 18.7
19/07/07 110 20.5

That's consistently nearly 20% of entries are new build. And when you look at many of the entries, they are for multiple houses described as 'The Donatello', 'The Fockwit' etc.

I just cannot for the life of me see where the shortage of new houses is. Perhaps it's somewhere else in the country.

But then when I drive to other places, there seems to be new build there too.

Interesting stats - I wish I was organised enough to put that sort of stuff together. Cambridge does seem to have a lot of new build at the moment but it's hard to judge what proportion of the total housing stock it represents. I read somewhere that about 5% of existing housing turns over every year so, if 20% of houses for sale in Cambridge are new build, that would mean that they might represent around 1% of the total in Cambridge every year, give or take - which isn't as much as the flood of new developments might make you think. One thing I have noticed is this time around, unlike the building that went on in the late 80s, most of the new build stuff is on brown field sites next to transport (road or rail) so is very visible. In the 80s, 1000s of acres of Cherry Hinton and Milton were turned into housing, this time it's a few hundred acres around the station and in odd gaps around the place. Having said that, the Arbury Camps development and the one down at Clay Farm in Trumpington are the real deal on size, when they come on line I'd expect 50% of the adverts to be for new build. It took 5 years after the last crash to finally sell the backlog of shoebox studio flats in Cherry Hinton - you could buy one for 25K all in (lawyers fees, mortgage fees, carpets, furniture, white goods etc) at one point.

An update on this one - my SO just got called by Cheffins to ask if we were interested in taking a look at any of the Union lane houses. Normally that wouldn't be so odd but it's 6 months since we did the rounds of the agents before deciding to stay put. They're clearly not beating off buyers with a shitty stick.

Something's up in Cambridge new build.

My weekly Rightmove check shows that the number of new build rose from 111 to 145 in the space of a week - it had been between 100 and 110 for several months, so this is a big up swing.

Looking through the listings it seems to be Bidwells that have started listing each and every unsold flat or house on their books whereas a lot of the agents/developers list a generic type.

This in itself has had the odd effect of screwing up my stats. Because all these new builds are so ridiculously expensive (above the median) it has skewed my median price calculation up a couple of thousand.

But in some respects this listing of everything separately might not be a bad thing as it now means that the total inventory on Rightmove (if inventory is the total number of individual listings) rises considerably.

Smacks of desperation amongst the agents for these new builds imo.

Maybe they're listing each on individually to push the average price statistics up?

It might do. I guess it depends on how RightMove calculates its average asking price.

If that is the case, then that is a fairly cynical move from Bidwells. But eventually they are going to find themselves between a rock and a hard place. They'll have a large number of unsold flats and houses from the new developments sitting in the listings, and when (one hopes) asking prices start to drop, multiple properties falling will speed the falls in the average price.

At which point they can go back to single listings! Looking at Rightmove, I don't think there's any distinction between a listing for a single house and a single listing for multiple houses but it's possible there's stuff in the background that allows Rightmove themselves to tell the difference. There's certainly an enmormous amount of new build on the market in Cambridge right now and builders are far more likely to start marking things down than private sellers if they find they can't sell so, maybe, the headline numbers will start to shift in the next month or so.

Have a look at Property Snake. Type in CB2 for the search area and have a look at the top five entries:

Direct link might work

Ha, Ha, Ha!

Asking prices for Triangle flats down between 15 and 20 per cent.

Nice! They're still horrible flats though (from the outside).

Some more updates:

I drove past Tonesters favourite block of new build flats (Meadowcroft) yesterday - clearly entirely uninhabited so far. The only sign of life were the two outside lights at the front of the building. That's 3 months on the market without a single sale - I think the one apartment not currently for sale might actually be the marketting suite btw.

The new build stuff on Union Lane/Scotland Road is still mostly empty and has started to be marked down. 10% so far, I predict more to come. Looking at the adverts and what's down as being sold at the LR, a good proportion of them appear to have been bought by flippers. Bet they're regretting that!

Vie in Chesterton seems to be selling a bit better but still has lots of empty houses in the newer phases.

The very expensive stuff down Brooklands Avenue is not selling. The early phases sold out very quickly, the latest stuff has stuck. It's hard to tell if any prices have been cut as they keep rejigging the adverts but I'm fairly sure I remember them being on at 1M plus originally, now down to 800+ or there abouts.

Arbury Park is dead - the only stuff that's sold at all is the shared ownership units at the front and even quite a few of them are still on the market. I've no idea who all the cars belong to, but it doesn't appear to be residents since they're mostly gone in the evening.

It's all looking a bit 1989 again I'd say. What's the betting at least one of Mereham, Northstowe or Clay Farm gets cancelled before being started?

Good undercover work thatst2000 Arbury Camps cracks me up, especially with the names like 'Da Vinci'.

Vie is going to have a problem with flooding next time Cambridge gets a bout as bad as 2000. I can't believe they didn't put car park on the ground level at least...

You say looking like 1989 again - were you in Cambridge at the time?

Yes, I lived here/there from 87 through to 92 before moving away for a while.

Check the other Cambridge post. A guy I work with paid 350K for a mearly new build on Rustat Ave. Theres one born every day.......

New build flats near the station staying empty is hardly a suprise. Back in July I had a few friends who were planning to club together and buy a place. I practically begged them not to, they ignored me, made a few offers on places and then as time was running out on their lease (their BTL landlord decided to sell up) they decided to rent while they continued looking. They've got a brand new 'luxury flat' by the station for 900pcm (initial price was 1100pcm but they easily bartered them down) and have decided not to buy.

A colleague bought a flat in Arbury Park about a year ago with a friend: they're the only OO's: all the rest are BTL. And they've things going wrong with it already: leaking bathrooms, broken showers. It made sense for them to buy as it's costing them less than renting (albeit with an IO mortgage)

Clay Farm will definitely go ahead: they've already started bulldozing the houses on Shelford Rd for Phase 2 of the access road to Addenbrookes: somewhat controversially as these shouldn't have been knocked down until Phase 2 of the road actually starts (April 2008). Phase 2 is dependent on the housing development at Clay Farm being granted planning permission as the developer will be paying for Phase 2. NB - the plans for the housing development are currently in consultation!! So in essence it's a done deal and the consultation a paper exercise with limited changes.

It does give me (and many others living in Trumpington) some ironic pleasure that there's a real possibility that the developer (an already extremely wealthy local farmer/wannabe laird) is not going to be able to make as much cash as he thought. Cherry Hinton Mk2 coming your way soon. And look what happened there during the last crash...

Thanks hope4crash, that's interesting; I have just moved from the Shelford/Trumpington area and wonder how much Clay Farm will change it. Do you know how many units are planned?

What did? I was not in Cambridge then.