62% of People Might Pay More for a House with Superfast Broadband

A new survey of 2,115 UK homeowners has claimed that 62% of respondents would be willing to increase the value of an offer on a house if it was “guaranteed” to deliver “superfast broadband” ISP speeds and 25% of those would increase their offer by £3000-£5000, while 10% said they’d go over £5,000.

The poll, which was conducted by Broadband Choices, found that accessing internet streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime and Now TV) was the main reason people needed a good internet connection (78%), followed by communicating via social media, WhatsApp and email (62%), online shopping (57%) and being able to work from home (25%).

Overall 69% of people said they considered having a “fast broadband connection” as an important factor when choosing a new area to live in. However, access to broadband was often delayed by at least 2-3 weeks after moving into a new home for 46% of respondents, while only 28% had immediate access. Sadly it does take a little time to get a new service activated as most people know, which can increase if a new line install is required.

Unfortunately this survey doesn’t appear to define what it means by “superfast” or “fast” broadband, which without a clear definition can still mean different things to different people when asked. We assume they mean 24Mbps+ or 30Mbps+ but many other people may not share that familiarity and could make a different judgement when responding to the question.

The above caveat is important because 24Mbps+ capable superfast broadband networks are now available to around 96% of premises across the United Kingdom, which makes surveys like this one seem somewhat out-of-date. Indeed it may now be more relevant to ask about the impact of having access to 1Gbps capable “full fibre” (FTTP/H) connections that are currently only available to 7% of premises.

As it stands most of the currently available evidence for the impact of broadband speed on house prices remains fairly anecdotal, although a 2014 study conducted by the London School of Economics (LSE) did claim that property prices increased by an average of around 3% when the available broadband speeds doubled (here). Obviously that’s now 5 years out-of-date too.

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.