The Great Northern Property Scandal

Manchester is often hailed as England's second city. Located in the North West of England it is home to some four hundred thousand people. Manchester, like many other towns in the north of England, rapidly expanded throughout the industrial revolution. From its beginnings as a small, almost missable town, Manchester quickly grew into 'Cottonopolis', its nick name during the city's heyday as a major cotton producing region in England. The legacy of the city's cotton making past is still evident in the many former warehouses and mills which are dotted around the urban sprawl.

 

Many of these mills and warehouses have been converted in to offices and apartment blocks, however being a highly urbanised area, there is no shortage of office space or accommodation and many of these newly converted mills and warehouses remain at least partially empty. This should be great news for potential home buyers as the amount of property on the market should be pushing house prices down as supply is greater than demand, but it's not quite working that way.

 

Manchester estate agents are keen to either sell or let the properties on their books, but they are also reluctant to let the prices drop too far, as this would mean their ever increasing profit margin may level out of even drop slightly. The fact is that with an abundance of any single product on the market, the price would naturally drop. However when it comes to property prices, which in my opinion have been artificially inflated for several decades now, the estate agents are keen to keep them as high as possible, even if it means pricing a lot of potential first time buyers out of the housing market.

 

Unlike the rest of the UK which is seeing a shortage in housing, the former industrial heartland of the north, being the City of Manchester has an abundance of property. In fact Manchester property prices should be far lower than what they currently are, but since the selling prices are usually set by an estate agent rather than the seller, Manchester property prices have remained far higher than they should be, for far longer than they should have.

 

For Manchester estate agents it's a win win situation as Manchester property is in abundance but the buying price is too high for many low to mid wage earners. This means their living option is reduced to renting instead of buying so where do they go? The estate agents! Again, the cost of renting in Manchester is as inflated as the property market, and with some seventy thousand students all in need of accommodation means the estate agents can charge what they like, which is bad news for those seeking affordable accommodation in Manchester.