Blackpool’s property market is set to exceed a valuation of £250m this year, with the total spent on sales growing by 19% since 2014. That’s according to property data and technology provider Search Acumen.
The firm’s findings showed the value of transactions in Blackpool reached £241m in 2017, up from £203m in 2014.
In the first half of 2018, meanwhile, £133 million worth of property transferred hands, which means Blackpool’s property market is on track to experience another record year of growth.
Blackpool property owners have seen the value of their homes rise by £11,633 on average since 2014, while the average property price in the seaside resort made famous by its tower, ballroom and theme park last year reached £119,783. This is up from £108,150 in 2014.
Search Acumen’s analysis coincides with Blackpool’s preparation for a digital data switchover, with the town ready to become one of the first in England and Wales to digitise its Local Land Charges (LLC) register, following in the wake of Liverpool, Warwick and the City of London. The digital portal registry from HM Land Registry aims to help speed up the process of buying and selling property by offering solicitors online access to the data required to conduct due diligence for homebuyers and sellers in just a few clicks. Previously, in some parts of the country, conveyancers could expect to wait up to 40 days to receive this information.
It’s hoped, once the scheme has been rolled out nationwide, that the digital switchover will prove a shot in the arm to regional economies and property markets across the UK. Approximately 979,000 property transactions took place over the last year in England and Wales, with Land Registry hoping this new way of doing things could save homebuyers, sellers, estate agents and solicitors millions of unnecessary days spent waiting for vital information to finalise property sales and purchases.
“With Blackpool’s property market on track for another year of record growth, the digital switch-on will be welcome news to local residents, businesses and investors, facilitating further growth and investment in the property market,” Andrew Lloyd, managing director of Search Acumen, commented.
He said the ‘snail’s pace’ of the transaction process has held back the property market and ‘often left people stranded after their chain falls through’. With this in mind, he believes the initiative put forward by HM Land Registry is a key part of transforming property transactions by helping to save time and reduce fall-through rates.
“The UK Government is now fully embracing the power of property data, something Search Acumen has championed since our inception,” Lloyd added. “With other government initiatives such as the Geospatial Commission set to maximise the value of land and property data even further, potentially generating £11 billion a year for the UK economy, the LLC digital switchover is just the start of the UK property market’s data-driven future.”
