An Estate Agent’s View


Jonathan Wilkins, a local resident, and owner of The Local Agent gives his own thoughts on property prices in Tattenham & Preston.

I believe recent price increases are due to several factors. The pandemic has caused many to re-assess their living arrangements and property needs with ongoing lifestyle changes such as, working from home and the need for outside space.

So many people are now working from home for the foreseeable future and do not need, or want, to live in London anymore – paying high property prices or rents. They do, however, need a home office and are desperate for a garden after realising how much staying indoors affects health and wellbeing.

This means we have seen a large influx of buyers moving further out of London to get more for their money, coupled with stamp duty savings of up to £15K.

At one point we were getting 20-30 viewing requests for houses within a few hours of them being listed on the market. Some houses that were competitively priced were achieving substantially over their asking prices!

Although the market has slowed a little recently, as the Government’s stamp duty holiday ends and people are going on holiday again, there is still a huge shortage of houses with many buyers still desperately looking for a home.

Demand for flats slowed dramatically in 2020 as many came on to the market looking to move to a house with a garden. There was and still is a shortage of houses making the gap to moving from a flat to a house even greater!”

But since the government stepped in by introducing 95% mortgages for first time buyers and home movers, we have seen flats selling again in 2021 with an influx of first-time buyers wanting to get on to the property ladder”

What’s Your Property Worth – Update September 2021

The average price of a property sold in our area is now £495,928 an increase of just over one percent on the month, five percent since last year and 70% over the past ten years. The increase is slightly greater, the cheaper the property.

Tattenham & Preston Property Prices*


The chart below shows the increase by property type during the past 10 years. The gap appears to have widened at the top end of the market with the growth of flats and maisonettes prices narrowing slightly.

The Increase in Tattenham & Preston Prices over the Past 10 Years*

When comparing our prices to the rest of England, although we are one of the highest property price areas in the country with a very high growth rate over 10 years, other regions have shown a much higher increase in the last year. As can be seen from the table below, The north-west of England showed an increase of 19% in the last year compared to our 5%. But it has the advantage of average home prices being less than half of ours

 Tattenham & Preston Increases Compared to England*

*How we have calculated data for Tattenham & Preston

The Land Registry registers the title of land and property in England and Wales. Every time a property is sold, it is a legal requirement to inform The Land Registry of the sale which is recorded in the title deeds of the property.

It publishes monthly statistics of such transactions which are used to estimate average property prices across the country. The information is more accurate than estate agent and building society statistics because it includes ALL transactions and is based on the price paid rather than the sale price advertised. But because it can take up to two months for data to be registered it can trail behind actual current prices.

Data is available by local authority areas. We are located in the north of the Borough of Reigate & Banstead. Because our borough stretches from Horley in the south to Tattenham & Preston in the north and property is slightly cheaper in the south of the borough, we have decided to use property prices for our neighbouring borough of Epsom & Ewell as more realistically reflecting prices in our area.

We have also used data for England to compare against rather than UK data which also includes Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

It should also be acknowledged that these are only average prices, and the actual cost of a property may vary significantly depending on  size, condition, number of bedrooms and availability of amenities.