Moving to Recovery: The 2014 Housing Market

2014 was a busy year for house movers, with the UK reaching a 7-year high on housing values and house sales. In the US, sales of houses started to decline, although the value started to creep back up after prices slumped dramatically between 2010-2012.

For a huge range of interesting fact about the housing market in 2014, please check out the infographic below: 

Moving to Recovery infographic by Bingham Self Storage

Moving to Recovery: The 2014 Housing Market - An infographic by Bingham Self Storage

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Although not quite as dramatic of a year, houses in the US still increased in value by 6.4% on average. Not bad. 

Despite houses in America being typically much larger in size than in the UK (over twice the size, on average), prices within England and its neighbouring countries continue to prove costly.  In fact, if you sold your 'average house' in the US, you'd just about be able to afford a considerably smaller property in Belfast, Ireland, should you scrape together a few thousand dollars extra.

If you had an 'average house' in the UK - defined here as a 3-bedroom property worth £272,000 - you'd almost be able to afford a house in America's most expensive state; Hawaii. However, the UK's average is skewed drastically by London's average property price, which currently stands at a whopping £640,025. 

It's prices like this that mean Brits move house less times than their American counterparts during a typical lifetime. On average, a Brit will move house twice before the age of 18, a further three times up to the age of 29, and three more times from 30 onwards.

Americans, on the other hand, will move around 12 times in their life, with their final three moves coming after the age of 44.

1 in 6 Americans will move house in any given year, whereas only 3 million people in the UK moved house in 2014 - just 1 in 21. Despite this, 4.9% of total moves in the UK was Brits moving abroad, contrasted with just 1.55% of America's total moves. 

What are the top three reasons for moving home? 

  • Wanting to get away from parents
  • Going to University
  • Moving in with a partner

On average, people will only live 63 miles from their birthplace. Only 1 in 5 people will end up living 200+ miles from their first house. 

Interesting facts

  • London's thinnest house (just over 8' wide) was sold for £450,000 in May 2014. If the world's tallest man, Robert Wadlow, was still alive today, he wouldn't be able to lie down without his head and feet touching both sides of the house. 
  • The highest value street in the UK is The Boltons, London, with properties worth £28.3m on average.
  • The highest value house in the US is East Hampton (NY), worth $147m. 
  • Wentworth Woodhouse is the largest privately owned home in the UK, with 250,000 square ft. of floorspace that covers 2.5 acres. It's also surrounded by a 180-acre park. 
  • The estimated value of the White House is over $287m. 
  • The smallest house in the UK is just 72 inches wide and 122 inches high, only fitting 4 people inside comfortably. 

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