Tuesday 19 February 2013

"Dozen homes rocket in value after the ones in front of them collapse into the sea"

From The Daily Mail:

It could be Britain's most profitable property collapse after a dozen houses, once worth over £6million, finally crept towards destruction after of one of the wettest years on record.

Residents on the other side of the road who originally did not have a sea view or direct access to the cliff tops in Sidmouth, Devon, are delighted that the crumbling coastline finally gave way.

John Badford, 62, who has owned 2 Cliff Road in the resort for 35 years is the street's second longest-standing resident. He says a pair of massive landslips in the space of a few weeks decimated the houses blocking his view - and he hopes that the erosion will now stop.

Sidmouth is part of the UNESCO Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, which is important for its sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks. And the landslides which have hit the cliffs there look set to provide owners of the surviving houses with significant windfall gains.

Mr Badford said: "Our houses are now much more sellable and mortgageable. The people who own them are laughing all the way to the bank. I was inspired to buy this sort of house after seeing the first Superman film. So, thanks for the hot tip, Lex Luthor!"

9 comments:

DBC Reed said...

Looks like the cat's officially out of the bag: Polly Toynbee in Guardian 19.ii.13," Yet developers sit on enough land for half a million homes waiting for prices to rise.They admit to making higher profits despite no building.Taylor Wimpey has called this its 'ongoing strategy of prioritisng margin over volume'.The IPPR's housing report shows how a conspiracy between banks and developers means a deliberate refusal to build for fear of exposing land's true worth.This zombie dysfunction needs firm government action ,forcing them to sell if they won't build".
Yeah we know all this but its nice to see others latching onto it and providing some quotes.

Dr Evil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr Evil said...

And what does this felow think will be happening after the next great storm and the one after that? He better sell to anyone daft enough to buy a house on a limestone cliff!

Jonathan Bagley said...

Reminds me of the plot of the first Superman movie.

Bayard said...

Dr E,

He'd be OK if it was limestone. It's actually basically mud. Anyway, Mark is pulling your leg.
Anyway too, the Mail is making a fuss about nothing, as usual. If you look at the aerial photo you can see that the cliff is still some diatance away from his house. It's a real case of "if present trends continue..." and there is never any evidence that they will.

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, good stuff.

Dr E, as Bayard says, going by that photo the next row of houses is safe for about fifty years.

JB, that was my point! Read the article! The location value of land cannot be destroyed, it just moves somewhere else if the land to which is was attached is destroyed.

B, ta for back up.

Robin Smith said...

MW. Tut tut. You can neither create nor destroy land. Collapsing cliffs is an anti improvement. Just as is ruining the soil quality by industrial farming. If the cliffs were shored up that would be improving the land. Same for reclaiming the sea.

Notice how Ms T forgot to mention the much bigger problem, there are 2 million empty homes, most 2nd homes. She comes from landed family. She will soon forget when this dawns as they always do.

Is this blog still proposing compensation for robbers. So long as they promise not to rob everyone in the future.

Mark Wadsworth said...

RS, of course you can destroy land. You can drop a dirty nuclear bomb on it.

But that has little effect on the overall rental value of land, because all the activities which created the value of that location will now take place somewhere else. So the rental value of land is not destroyed, it just moves elsewhere.

Did you really not understand the plot of the first Superman film?

Furry Conservative said...

"I am concerned about my house but equally concerned about...the town".

Doubt it. Oh, and he is a second home owner. Truly my heart bleeds for him.