The Aberdeen House Prices & Rents thread

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Anyway...

Back to Aberdeen prices.

Still no sign of a crash yet.

Aberdeen prices are -2.8% Year on Year versus -1.8% for Scotland.



Sales volumes holding up quite well, not as high as 2013/14 but higher than 2010/11/12.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

And for Aberdeen rents, the latest Citylets figures....

Average 1 bed = £617

Average 2 bed = £887

Average 3 bed = £1213

Average 4 bed = £1702

While those figures are certainly down a fair bit in the last 12 months, around 15%, they're still eye-wateringly expensive in my opinion.

Of course you can find some that are cheaper and less nice than the average, (that's why it's an average), just as you can find some more expensive than the average, but overall those rents are still way higher than other comparable markets with similar house prices.

The typical 1 bed flat used for renting sells for somewhere between £85K and £100K.

The current yield based on average rent is between 7.3% and 8.6%. :eek:

chucknorris

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And for Aberdeen rents, the latest Citylets figures....

Average 1 bed = £617

Average 2 bed = £887

Average 3 bed = £1213

Average 4 bed = £1702

While those figures are certainly down a fair bit in the last 12 months, around 15%, they're still eye-wateringly expensive in my opinion.

Of course you can find some that are cheaper and less nice than the average, (that's why it's an average), just as you can find some more expensive than the average, but overall those rents are still way higher than other comparable markets with similar house prices.

The typical 1 bed flat used for renting sells for somewhere between £85K and £100K.

The current yield based on average rent is between 7.3% and 8.6%. :eek:

What is actually happening up there Hamish, have many people been laid off, or are the oil companies (and other businesses) retaining staff hoping for a recovery? If many people have been laid off, were they contractors who moved to Aberdeen to work, and are now likely to return to their home towns?

westernpromise

That 4 bed rental price is well over 50% of what you can rent 4 bedrooms for in Hampstead Garden Suburb, which has a tube stop 25 minutes away from the City!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?searchType=RENT&locationIdentifier=REGION%5E70354&insId=1&radius=0.0&minPrice=&maxPrice=3500&minBedrooms=4&maxBedrooms=4&displayPropertyType=&maxDaysSinceAdded=&sortByPriceDescending=&_includeLetAgreed=on&primaryDisplayPropertyType=&secondaryDisplayPropertyType=&oldDisplayPropertyType=&oldPrimaryDisplayPropertyType=&letType=&letFurnishType=&houseFlatShare=false

Who has that sort of money in Aberdeen?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

chucknorris wrote: »

What is actually happening up there Hamish, have many people been laid off, or are the oil companies (and other businesses) retaining staff hoping for a recovery?

If many people have been laid off, were they contractors who moved to Aberdeen to work, and are now likely to return to their home towns?

It's pretty interesting, from my observations it's nowhere near as bad or gloomy as it was in 2008/9, despite the oil price falling more.

In terms of offshore activity there are two sides to it, production from existing platforms which is where most people work, and exploration on drilling rigs which move around a lot.

Production is more or less unaffected. They've had some changes to rotations and T&C but it's not that big a hit TBH. The capital has been spent developing the field and building the infrastructure and they'll keep pumping oil for many years and decades to come no matter what the price does.

The drilling rigs however are almost all shut down and cold stacked up at Invergordon. But many of those crews don't actually live in Aberdeen, as those rigs could be working in the UK segment of the North Sea, or the European Segment, or anywhere really. These are the guys that fly in and fly out for their rotations. So while they've been hit pretty hard the overall impact to Aberdeen is not as high as it would be if they all lived here.

In terms of onshore oil industry staff again it's a pretty mixed bag.

There have been some decent sized layoffs as a result of new work drying up, because there's pretty much no exploration going on globally at the moment, and these companies have a global market to service from their Aberdeen HQ's.

But everyone knows that oil production drops rapidly without new drilling so that will pretty soon become a self correcting situation. Certainly the friends I have in the industry are pretty relaxed about it.

As prices remain cheap consumption will rise, and without new drilling, production will continue to fall. There's only one inevitable consequence of that... At some point in the next few years prices will rise and exploration will have to start again.

In terms of the effect on Aberdeen so far...

Taxis and hotels are definitely less busy then they were but still busier than most other regional cities. People are still shopping, still going out for meals and drinks, still spending money. Some businesses have taken a hit, luxury car sales and office building rental for example, but others are more or less unchanged. We still have new restaurants opening, new developments going on, etc.

You've got decades of oil production left up here no matter what the price, and decades after that of decommissioning work, and without any oil at all Aberdeen is still a major regional city with two universities, local govt hubs, fishing, agriculture and even some tourism.

Even with the current oil industry woes and a big (by our standards) increase in claims over the last year, the unemployment rate is still tiny. Aberdeen city’s claimant count rate in December was just 1.6% of 16 to 64-year-olds, and in Aberdeenshire it was 1.1%, versus 2.1% for Scotland as a whole.

And the govt has also just announced they're spending half a billion quid on infrastructure and development upgrades for the city and shire which will create significant numbers of jobs.

So overall, yes, there are certainly problems for a minority but outside the relatively small proportion of people working in Oil and Gas it's pretty much unchanged for most.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

westernpromise wrote: »

That 4 bed rental price is well over 50% of what you can rent 4 bedrooms for in Hampstead Garden Suburb, which has a tube stop 25 minutes away from the City!

Who has that sort of money in Aberdeen?

Well me for one.... And I don't work in oil and gas.

But I own not rent so not a problem.

It's £425 a month each for 4 students or young professionals sharing a house. Which is cheaper than paying £600 for an average one bed flat. And probably a lot nicer to live in as well.

Crashy_Time

https://www.aspc.co.uk/search/property/338000/Restalrig---287-North-Deeside-Road/Aberdeen/


HPC Hive mind saying this is approaching the 2007 price. What`s the score Hamish?

mwpt

Crashy_Time wrote: »

https://www.aspc.co.uk/search/property/338000/Restalrig---287-North-Deeside-Road/Aberdeen/

HPC Hive mind saying this is approaching the 2007 price. What`s the score Hamish?

That's a nice place.

Crashy_Time

https://www.aspc.co.uk/search/property/338063/11-Polmuir-Gardens/Aberdeen/


Another one bouncing back in time to 2007 price, according to HPC Hive mind.

Crashy_Time

Still massively overvalued IMO, just shows how lots of loose credit/money sloshing around can distort values.