HALIFAX – UK Homes with Slow Broadband Attract Lower Prices SHOCK

The latest survey of 2,000 adults in the United Kingdom by Halifax, which queried what kind of impact broadband connectivity would have on house buying, found that 23% would attempt to negotiate a lower price if the property had a poor broadband connection, while 20% would pay more for a home with “good broadband” and 18% said broadband had been merely a consideration during past moves.

The link between house value and broadband connectivity is of course nothing new, hence the slightly tongue-in-cheek “SHOCK” aspect of our title, although it’s interesting to note that 23% would at least attempt to negotiate a lower price rather than reject the property out of hand (as many others would probably do).

On top of that there’s a slight gender divide, with 21% of men saying they’d be willing to pay more for a house with “good broadband” and this compares to just 16% of women. It’s perhaps worth noting how Ofcom’s separate data found that men generally spent around 5-10% more time online than women (except between the ages of 35-44 where online activity is fairly balanced).

Respondents were also asked to name the most “annoying thing” that people experience in their own homes, which saw noisy neighbours come top, followed by slow broadband, poor mobile reception, leaky taps and creaking floorboards. Incidentally Halifax said the average UK house price in September 2014 was £187,188 (up 9.6% on Sept 2013).

Craig McKinlay, Halifax’s Director of Mortgages, said (CityAM):

“Alongside outside space, private parking, and good transport links, a strong broadband signal is fast becoming a very significant feature of looking for a new home.”

At the time of writing Halifax still hasn’t upload the official press release for their survey, although it’s worth noting that many of their past reports have tended to define “good broadband” as an Internet connection that can offer speeds of greater than 2Mbps (Megabits per second). Admittedly that’s certainly not what we’d call “good“, although opinions will always vary and expectations tend to grow as the years pass.

The UK Government currently hopes to make a minimum fixed line broadband download speed of 2Mbps available to everybody by 2012 2015 2017, which is also when it expects 95% of the population to be put within reach of so-called “super-fast broadband” (24Mbps+) speeds. As usual most of this will be delivered via BT’s hybrid fibre FTTC service and Virgin Media’s cable platform, with a little pure fibre optic (FTTH/P/B) in various pockets.