After getting my mortgage approved by the Nottingham Building Society, I put an offer in and my wife started to immediately put all the things we need into boxes - my whole life is living out of boxes at the moment.
The following week, the news came out that the school which is literally 50 meters from our new house is officially the best school on the whole Fylde Coast; and, to top that off, the Royal Mail said our new post code was one of the top ten in the whole of the UK.
I couldn’t be happier!
Then, disaster struck – they are opening up a Lidl just around the corner.
According to Lloyds Bank, that reduces my house price by 2%.
But I do have a Booths just around the other corner which is basically a northern Waitrose and voted the best in the UK by Guardian columnist Jay Rayner.
Having a Waitrose near where you live - as every middle-class person knows - increases the value of your home, claims Lloyds Bank.
Properties within ‘easy reach’ of a Waitrose cost 12% more than other homes in the same area, says the bank.
Homes close to a Sainsbury's carry a 10% price premium - and those near Tesco carry an 8% premium.
I am not sure you could really say that house prices go up because of a good supermarket. It’s more likely that good supermarkets move into areas that show good growth.
I don’t think on this occasion that you can claim that correlation is causation.
But the fact is, having any sort of supermarket nearby can add an average of £15,000 to a property concludes the research - and I have two.
That coupled with a good school, low crime, low unemployment and high home ownership should see me well.
I will let you know how I get on – just waiting on the Nottingham Building Society now…!
