YOU DON’T often look to a transvestite potter for property analysis. But
Grayson Perry made an apposite comment about Liverpool recently: “Here is a
place usually portrayed as having an overdeveloped sense of entitlement
because it gave the world the Beatles and its teams are quite good at
football.”
Anyone who has seen Peel Holding’s ambitious £5.5 billion plans for the
Liverpool Waters project couldn’t fail to wonder about this “overdeveloped
sense of entitlement”. Here are homes for 50,000 people, in silver
skyscrapers up to 50 storeys high, right in the middle of Liverpool,
intended to be built in the next 20 to 40 years. Down there in real life,
meanwhile, developers are struggling to flog city-centre apartments to
first-time buyers.
Liverpool has been undergoing one of its periodic identity crises, timed just
right for its forthcoming role as European City of Culture in 2008. It
desperately wants to play with the big urban renaissance boys, like
Manchester and Birmingham. But Liverpool just can’t seem to pull it off. It
even held a conference last year to debate whether it was entitled to
consider itself “a world-class city”. That’s Liverpool for you.
Local property experts agree that one of the reasons why the city centre
market has been so slow to take off is because there were so few people
living there for so long. Between 1971 and 1991, the city centre population
fell from 3,600 to 2,340. An estimated 14,000 people now live in the same
area, according to research by the regeneration company Liverpool Vision.
The once dilapidated Georgian properties around Hope Street are now among the
most desirable around. Period charm and limited stock continue to push up
prices. Expect to pay upwards of £300,000 for a terraced property. King
Sturge has a gorgeous six-bedroom, newly renovated house on Hope Street, for
£750,000.
Every industrial northern city suffered rapid depopulation when steel,
manufacturing, shipbuilding and trade began to decline in the 1970s. But in
Liverpool the flight out had been in full swing since before the Second
World War. When the docks dominated the city and waterfront, anyone with
aspiration moved out to the suburbs as soon as they could. An average family
semi in popular areas such as Aigburth, Woolton and Mossley Hill currently
costs between £165,000 and £225,000. As the controversial Pathfinder scheme
slowly gets on with the job of demolishing thousands of houses in rundown
areas of the city, canny developers are moving in, creating “new” suburbs.
In Wavertree, for example, Braidwater’s Lseven is a mixed development of
townhouses and apartments, starting at £102,950 for a 533 sq ft one-bedroom
flat and £149,950 for an 898 sq ft townhouse. Lseven is proving popular for
all the old-fashioned reasons: it is close to direct trains to Manchester
and Liverpool and is a five-minute walk from Wavertree Technology Park.
Back in the city centre, every month seems to bring another sign of
sophistication — a Mal-maison hotel opened in January — but the trend for
downtown apartment living still has a way to go. “It really is in its
infancy and came too late to market,” says one property insider. “It is
interesting that the first real swanky apartment offer, Space on Hatton
Garden, sold extremely quickly in 2002-03, as did the first Beetham offers,
Plaza and Towers. The other local developers were too slow off the mark and
were hit by the slowdown in 2004.”
Lack of supply has been a problem. Now there is plenty to choose from. Some
say too much. According to the Residential Update published by Liverpool
Vision in February: “2006 saw a peak [of apartment completion] at nearly
1,500 units, but 2007 is set to exceed even that record with an even higher
number of major schemes currently on site or due to commence in the very
near future.” One of the biggest schemes is One Park West, part of the £920
million, 42-acre residential, retail and leisure Paradise project by
Grosvenor. Designed by the US architect Cesar Pelli, who worked on Canary
Wharf, One Park West is a 17-storey building of 326 one, two and
three-bedroom flats due for completion in early 2009. In February phases 1
and 2 sold out almost immediately and were popular with investors. Prices in
phase 3 start at £100,667 for 325 sq ft starter apartments.
Keen pricing is absolute key in Liverpool right now, and developers have had
to adjust their expectations. It is reported that the £1 million apartment
planned by Pierse at the Tower development, a conversion of Edwardian
shipping offices, has been quietly shelved.
After all the hype and empty promises of the past few years, it is clearly
time for some straight talking. Martyn Green, partner at King Sturge
Residential, says that investors are keen on one and two-bedroom flats, but
don’t want larger three-bedroom units. Those hoping that Liverpool might
present an exciting response to the dilemma of how to create a
family-friendly city will be disappointed. King Sturge Residential,
0151-242 6490, www.kingsturge.co.uk (also agents for One Park West);
Braidwater, 0151-489 5566, www.braidwater.com
FACTFILE
The average price of a property in Liverpool is £132,281, against the national
average of £177,099. Terraced houses are the most popular property: in
December 2006, within seven miles of Liverpool city centre, 503 changed
hands against 114 flats. With a median age of 26, the city centre
population is one of the youngest in Britain. Growth in the city centre
apartment market has actually gone into reverse. In 2000-06 values rose by
70.14 per cent, in 2005-06 they fell by 1.94 cent.
THENUMBERS... LOCATION FIXATION
THE location mantra has not lost all its force. Costs have pushed many home
buyers out of areas they love but we still place a premium on proximity to
places we value. More than a quarter of us list being close to the country
as the most important location factor, according to research by Halifax
Estate Agents. Our second priority is easy access to public transport (18
per cent), followed by closeness to a good school or to work (14 per cent
each). A sedate 11 per cent of us value being near shops and restaurants,
slightly more than those who like being by a town centre (10 per cent).
Sixty per cent of us say that we would pay £10,000 or more for such features;
about half of us would shell out up to £50,000. Two per cent of us would pay
£250,000 or more. Only a quarter of buyers would refuse to spend more for a
desirable geographical location; perhaps, at current house prices, they are
so stretched as to be delighted to afford anything anywhere.
Local amenities are certainly bankable, but it seems that neighbours are not.
Almost half of us have never received a housewarming present or card on
arrival, although we move on average six times in our lives, Halifax
research also reveals. But it seems we don’t mind: 76 per cent of us say we
would not be offended if neighbours failed to introduce themselves.
When a gift does arrive, it is most commonly a greetings card (37 per cent),
though plants and flowers remain popular (23 per cent), but among Scots the
preferred housewarming gift is alcohol. It might not be a home-baked welcome
worthy of the matrons of Wisteria Lane, but there’s surely no better way to
get a relationship off on the right foot. Perhaps it is one of the reasons
why Nationwide house price data just out reveals that property prices in
Scotland have beaten those in the well-documented boom market in London,
having risen 15.2 per cent in a year. The uplift is second only to Northern
Ireland, where prices are up 14.6 per cent this quarter alone, to make an
annual rise of 57.6 per cent. Judith Heywood
