Research from lettings and estate agent Benham and Reeves has revealed that there is an estimated £170 billion worth of vacant property across the UK, with Birmingham, Liverpool, and Leeds being home to most.
Property Wire reports that Birmingham, the UK’s second city has 11,000 properties sitting empty, with Liverpool (10,700) and Leeds (9,900) closely following.
Benham and Reeves analysed data on the number of vacant properties across England, looking at the average house price in each area to see where was home to the highest value level of vacant homes.
In terms of region and value, London comes top. With the much higher price of property in the London region, the estimated value of empty properties comes in at £35.581 billion, and the capital accounts for the top three areas with the most valuable vacant property markets on a local level.
It’s not just the capital that’s home to a high value of vacant properties. Birmingham ranks fourth, with 10,999 vacant homes in the city at an average price of £193,774 meaning some £2.131 billion of property is sitting empty.
Leeds also ranks high with £1.967 billion worth of property lying vacant, followed by Cornwall (£1.834 billion), Brighton and Hove (£1.676 billion), Barnet (£1.576 billion), Liverpool (£1.559 billion) and Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (£1.545 billion).
Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von Grundherr said, “Given the ongoing housing crisis and the government’s consistent failure in addressing the shortage of property stock to meet demand, it’s quite frankly scandalous that such a vast number of homes are sitting vacant across towns and cities all over England.”
He added that instead of the struggle to find land to build on, a focus on the current stick of vacant buildings and making them fit for purpose would be a far great allocation of funds.
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