Survey Claims Slow UK Broadband Homes Sell for £38.9k Less

A new survey by Satellite operator Eutelsat has claimed that UK homes with “poor broadband” connectivity can end up selling for £38,902 less than their market value, which is said to reflect the fact that respondents would only be willing to buy such a house if it came with a 16% discount.

The survey noted that 39% of respondents wouldn’t even consider homes with “slow speeds” and 52% would shun an entire area if their research revealed speeds were lacking. Sadly the reports on this survey (e.g. Daily Post), which seem to be mostly a copy and paste of the same press release, make no mention of how many people were surveyed, how or when. Likewise, the study does not appear to define what it means by “poor” or “slow” connectivity.

In terms of priority, being able to go online is now one of the most important things for house hunters (51%), which is followed by cosmetic appeal (27%), double glazing (35%) and being close to a local shop (25%). Some 14% would even be willing to give up a bath (we assume they mean ‘bathroom’) in order to get decent broadband (once again “decent” isn’t defined, so this very subjective), while 15% would give up a garden and 7% would even sacrifice inside toilets.

All of this has some relevance because, in the wake of a rise in home working due to COVID-19, some 41% of property hunters now say they are looking to move away from urban areas and into somewhere more rural. The catch being that broadband connectivity in rural areas can be worse than in dense urban locations.

James Soames, Marketing Director for Eutelsat, said:

“Connecting reliably to broadband, particularly in rural areas, has been a real pain point for many of us in the UK. Given the huge switch to working from home this year, fast, affordable and easily available service is needed more than ever.”

At this point Eutelsat highlights its vested interest by trying to promote their new KONNECT service, which we wrote about last month (here). We should remind readers that so-called “superfast broadband” (24-30Mbps+) networks are currently estimated to cover around 96% of UK premises (or over 60% for “ultrafast” speeds of 100Mbps+), but much may rest upon whether or not house hunters still consider that sort of performance to be fast enough.

As it stands most of the currently available evidence for the impact of broadband speed on house prices remains fairly anecdotal. We know it’s a key element for the majority of people, but what they will tolerate in terms of connection performance (for some people this is about more than just speed, but also latency etc.) vs house price vs other factors can vary.

Ultimately the decision about how much you pay for a house will always come down to a matter of personal choice, which is of course different for everybody.