Home truths

Cash-paying downsizers will have to compete with families hoping to upsize for these three charming homes under 2 million

- Penny Churchill

ACCORDING to a recent Zoopla House Price Index, one in three homes was bought for cash in 2023 as rising mortgage rates squeezed buying power. As a result, the share of cash buyers rose from one-fifth over the previous five years to one-third in 2023, as low demand and weak buying power saw national houseprice growth fall from 9.2% in late 2022 to -1.1% at the end of 2023. Driven by ever-increasing rents, first-time buyers were the largest group of home buyers in 2023, followed by downsizers paying in cash, with upsizers the most at risk from higher mortgages, as they typically buy bigger homes with larger mortgages.

Despite the prospect of lower mortgage rates in the coming months, last year’s trend seems destined to continue in 2024, says Rob Fanshawe of buying agents Property Vision, who wonders whether ‘more of the same may not be exciting, but would that really be such a bad thing?’ With village houses in good locations setting the pace and plenty of competition for houses judged the best in class, ‘it may seem unfair,’ he says, ‘but, for now at least, most vendors would prefer to deal with a downsizer, rather than a family with a mortgage’.

Good houses in sought-after Cotswold villages are always in vogue and early bird Ben Bentley of Oxford-based The Country House Department (01865 338300) was keen to seize the day with last week’s launch onto the market—at a guide price of £1.85 million —of pristine, Grade II-listed Cleeve House at Ampney St Peter, Gloucestershire. This pretty, small village of Cotswold-stone cottages and houses is 3½ miles from Ciren- cester, 19 miles from Cheltenham and just under nine miles from Kemble station.