Lloyds TSB Reports Young Professionals Attracted by the Bright Lights of South West London

    LONDON, ENGLAND, May 30, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- When it comes to putting down roots, south west London holds the biggest allure for aspiring young professionals. The latest research from Lloyds TSB reveals Fulham is the leading property hotspot for career minded young adults.

Other areas in the capital favoured by this group include Paddington, Putney, Canary Wharf, Hampstead and Kilburn.

Hove and central Brighton on the Sussex south coast are the only areas in the 20 most favoured places by young careerists outside London.

Beyond London and the south east young professionals are flocking to south Manchester...

Didsbury in south Manchester is the biggest hotspot for young professionals outside London and the south east.

Other regional hotspots for young professionals include Jesmond in Newcastle, Broomhill and Fulwood in Sheffield and West Bridgford in Nottingham.

Most of these areas have high prices...
Properties in the areas popular with young professionals typically come with a hefty price tag. SW6 in Fulham, for example, has an average price of GBP782,5882. The next most popular areas of Wimbledon (SW19) and Wandsworth (SW18) have average house prices of nearly GBP500,000: GBP476,123 and GBP489,157 respectively. As a result, young professionals would need to pay a premium of 40% to live in these desirable areas, compared with London as a whole.

In Didsbury young professionals pay an average premium of 56% compared with Manchester as a whole - GBP215,813 against GBP138,157.

The average house price in Jesmond is GBP227,533; a 39% premium compared with the whole of Newcastle. In Broomhill and Fulwood in Sheffield, there is a 35% premium compared with Sheffield. West Bridgford has an average premium of 55% compared with Nottingham as a whole.

Suren Thiru, Housing and mortgage economist at Lloyds TSB, said:
"The typical profile of young professionals is that they tend to have university qualifications, are in well paid occupations and like to take full advantage of living in or close to the city, either for work or leisure purposes. Our analysis certainly suggests this to be the case with Fulham as the leading hot spot for young aspiring urbanites.

"Outside London the areas most popular with this segment of the population also tend to fit the profile. In the majority of cases, young buyers have to pay a significant premium for a property to live in these areas compared with living in other parts of the city."

NOTES TO EDITORS:
1All prices are based on transactions in the 12 months to February 2012 recorded on the Land Registry database for transactions in England and Wales.
2 average price is based on property transactions taking place within specific postal districts (i.e. SW6).

Methodology:
There is an ACORN consumer classification against the postcode of each housing transaction in the Land Registry database; for this survey we have concentrated solely on transactions involving the category group "Young Urbanites". These are affluent young professionals and well off urban professionals in the age band 25 to 44. Young Urbanites make up 5.3% of the UK population, according to CACI estimates.

For further background on the ACORN demographic analysis please refer to
http://www.caci.co.uk/acorn-classification.aspx

The most popular area is the Young Urbanite neighbourhood with the largest number of transactions. The most popular areas for Young Urbanites are determined by calculating the number of housing transactions that took place at postcode sector level (e.g.SW6 1V) in the 12 months to February 2012. For ease of analysis, all transactions are then aggregated up to postal district level (e.g. SW6). The name of the relevant post town or local area name is attributed to the relevant postal district for ease or reference in this release although the relevant postcode will be only part of that broader area or town.

The data in this report are compiled from over 1.78 million UK post codes supplied by the Royal Mail in conjunction with the Land Registry database of housing transactions and prices.

House prices shown are arithmetic average prices relating to house transactions between March 2011 and February 2012.

Website: http://www.lloydstsb.com

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