Winners in the Cambridge Residential Market - rises vary widely in suburbs (Alex R Cook FRICS, Consultant)

The table shown indicates how some houses in Cambridge have increased in value between 1962 and 1999.

Cambridge house price movements 1962 - 1999

All are winners but some types and locations of homes have increased more than others.

For example the typical two and three bedroom Victorian terrace houses off Mill Road show the largest increase in percentage terms. Many of these, in the private rented sector sixty years ago, were somewhat neglected as landlords were unable or unwilling to carry out maintenance and improvements because of the low rents received and the inability to increase these by reason of the Rent Restriction Acts.

After the War a City Public Health Inspector placed a blight on part of the area seeking wholesale demolition and re-development. This hardly added to the public perception of a near central area of suitable and adaptable housing. With the lifting of the planning blight and the sale by landlords in preference to re-letting at low rents, an increasing number of these comparatively low priced houses were sold and owner occupiers began to improve their properties. This trend accelerated in the mid-seventies when young professional, business and academic buyers purchased in the area in numbers and enthusiastically , and mostly sympathetically, set about restoring and improving these versatile quite spacious homes.

These had been at prices below £1,000 in the years following the War and. even in the seventies, at between £5,000 and £15,000, proved to be excellent value and a fast appreciating asset.

Over the intervening years, partly with grant aid and Council encouragement, the entire area of Victorian housing in Romsey Town has taken on a new life and the close proximity of the City centre and the many local amenities add to the attraction of the area - with on street parking now remaining as the main problem. Aesthetically it is a pity that many Victorian sash windows and original doors have been replaced with non-matching fenestration -and this goes for other City areas as well. One hopes that the strength of the conservation lobby will increase and ultimately ensure the restoration to the original style of the late nineteenth century elevations.

The Leasehold Reform Act 1967, with its later amendments, hit Cambridge Colleges hard. Many citizens owning the right to live in their leasehold properties for an ever decreasing number of years did exceptionally well. The winners included Bateman Street, the Glisson Road/St Barnabas Road area, Barrow Road and the other Trinity College freeholds in Hills Road, Sedley Taylor Road, Luard Road and Long Road. In retrospect it was questionable legislation as it has to be said that any purchaser of a shortening leasehold property knew the score and paid the appropriate low price -only to gain substantially at the expense of, in this area, the Cambridge Colleges, when acquiring the freehold for a comparatively small sum a few years later.

The demand for housing in the former Newnham village location and the De Freville Avenue area has also created pockets of housing showing remarkable increases in value over the years.

A snapshot of one popular type of three bedroom semi is that built by Robinson & Gimbert with the L shaped reception room. These were first built in Montgomery Road and Redfern Close around 1955-1957 costing around £2,500 new and now marketing at around £120,000.

Moving to the upper end of the market with the individual detached houses in Porson Road a typical 1956 house would have cost new between £5,000 and £6,000 including the 60' wide plot at £1,050. These now command around £400,000 on re-sale.

It can readily be seen that the purchase of housing over the last half-century has produced spectacular tax free rewards if "nesting" and substantial taxed rewards if purchasing for "investing". The generation that did best is now of pensionable age with the one downside of worry over the cost of care in old age.

On a lighter note a new basic car some fifty years ago would have cost about £800 with its equivalent to-day costing around £11,000 -both depreciating heavily from day one. So if you bought a house off Mill Road instead [at the same cost] and stayed with a bicycle fifty years ago you would be far wealthier [and healthier ?] than the family that bought a house and a car -or just a car and lived in rented accommodation!

Looking back merely at the last year few pundits would have forecast the considerable rise in residential property values, especially in the Cambridge area. The Romsey Town Victorian home probably rose by up to 30% as did the large Victorian town houses, which, as ever, were in high demand and short supply. A rise of 20% to 25% would seem to be the average increase across the board for all Cambridge property in 1999. Many houses were sold by seeking "best and final offers" as a fast but often painful way to bring matters to a conclusion when the Agent was faced with a number of keen would be purchasers.