Study Claims Slow Broadband Could Wipe 24% Off UK House Prices

A new study from Housesimple, which examined average UK house prices on streets with some of the slowest broadband ISP speeds (under 1Mbps) and then compared prices on those with neighbouring streets within the local area, has claimed that “ultra slow” speeds could knock 24% (average) off the value of a property.

The research revealed that houses prices were on average 24% lower on the streets with the slowest broadband speeds (i.e. £182,983 compared to £240,031 for the overall postcode district). For example, home broadband speeds on Coppice Farm Park, in St. Leonards (Tring) are a dismal 0.719 Mbps and average house prices there are £211,333, which is 62% lower than the postcode district average of £556,974.

Similarly broadband speeds in Blackstone Avenue (Glasgow) are just 0.669 Mbps and average house prices there are £90,834, which is 45% less than the average for that postcode district of £165,505. The study also claimed that “pedestrian broadband speeds” may also have contributed to reduced house sales on these streets (i.e. across the 20 slowest streets, just 27 properties were sold in the past 12 months).

Sam Mitchell, CEO of Housesimple, said:

“Broadband is now considered the fourth utility after water, gas and electricity, such is our reliance on a fast internet connection at home for everyday tasks such as food shopping and watching the television. And having a fiendishly slow internet connection at home can really affect the saleability of a house.

Buyers may be reluctant to purchase on a street where broadband speeds are so slow that they can’t do simple tasks such as open multiple web pages concurrently, speak to friends on social media channels and download movies, let alone work from home.

It is often one of the first questions asked by buyers when viewing – how fast is the broadband connection? – along with the quality of the local schools and reliability of the transport links. As with any purchase, buyers need to do their due diligence. It is worth asking if the internet is slow for any reason, most sellers will be happy to explain why that is, and be able to provide the best advice on your broadband options, to ensure the best connection possible.”

However this is a very simplistic way of looking at such things and it doesn’t tell us the whole story about other differences that may exist between the areas. For example, there could be significant differences in terms of council tax bands, school catchments, quality or size of housing, availability of gas, crime rates etc. Assuming that broadband is the primary factor in all this would be risky, hence why correlation is not causation.

On top of that Housesimple appears to be using data from uSwitch as its base for comparison (see our original article), which is very flaky because the comparison site was using consumer speedtest based data (i.e. more reflective of service take-up) and this is an entirely different consideration from that of actual local network availability. Not to mention that it can also be impacted by other issues, such as slow WiFi.

For example, a number of the slowest streets in uSwitch’s comparison actually had significantly faster connections available and availability is important because that’s what house buyers will be looking at. Suffice to say, take the following results with a sizeable pinch of salt.. like a whole beach of the stuff.