New builds driving boom in million-pound houses

Oracle finance director Conor Burke said this could be the new normal for the island.

‘It’s just property prices increasing. It’s not out of the ordinary [now],’ he said.

The average local property price has risen by more than 13% in the last year, from £531,375 to £612,788 according to statistics collated by Unusualities of Guernsey, and in October alone more than 20 homes sold for more than £1m. More than half of those were on the local market.

Overall just fewer than 80 homes were sold during October.

Housing commentator Ray Sebire, who compiles the local property sale statistics, puts the increase in prices down to new developments.

‘If you look at the new estates on Route de Carteret and Le Hurel, there’s nothing for sale under £700,000, and these are all local market houses.’

However there is some indication that the continuing steady rise in property prices that Guernsey has experienced may be coming to an end, and the October figures are the legacy of the market before the Kwarteng UK mini-budget threw the markets into turmoil almost six weeks ago.

SPF Private Clients managing director Pierre Blampied felt that prices were starting to plateau.

‘The high worth transactions in October would be mainly due to offers being made two months prior, and therefore before we have seen increased interest rates,’ he said.

Local estate agents said that the high value transactions were something they often see at this time of year and that they had seen a drop off since the mini-budget.

‘The amount of high value properties that went through in October seems to be a seasonal thing,’ said Cooper Brouard director Matt Brouard. ‘They do take longer to go through, often for complex reasons, so we often get a spike of them in the autumn period.’

Mr Brouard did not think house prices would continue to rise at their current rate.

‘The increase in the mortgage rate will probably steady house prices rather than lead to a decline,’ he said.

‘The market has been superheated for two or three years and has calmed a little.’

Swoffers director Andre Austin said the situation had been improving.

‘When Truss threw her grenade, things did go quiet,’ he said.

‘But we’ve been heartened by the activity in the last two weeks. There still seem to be plenty of buyers, and the problem as always is a lack of stock across the board.’