Think you have a better knowledge of the housing market than a 11 year old? Think again…
Do you know your stamp duty from your cul-de-sac? Do the letters LTV mean anything to you? A recent survey from Hatched has shown some rather surprising results regarding our knowledge of the property industry and the jargon that goes alongside it. The housing market can be a confusing place, and as young adults here at YCB we firmly believe that lessons at school in buying a house would be much more useful to us now that the Pythagorus theorem, but that’s up for debate!
Two seven year old students, a university student, and a young adult were all quizzed on their knowledge of the UK housing market and various industry terms. The quiz included both visual and verbal tests, this included a practical task which asked the participants to guess the costs of different houses based on Hatched listings that were put in front of them. Sounds simple enough…
The questions started at a basic level such as “what is a detached house” then progressing to more difficult questions such as “what is stamp duty?” and “how long does it take to buy a house?”
And the results?
Quite surprising, actually!
Overall, the knowledge base was strong and even the year 7 students were able to demonstrate a good insight. It was also noted that the year 7 students were much more positive about the house buying process than millennials, which is really not at all surprising. It must be all those avocado toasts we keep buying ;). With the increased cost of living (and stagnant wages), it’s really no surprise that millennials are feeling bogged down and negative towards buying a house.
A common theme from the quiz among all participants was family. When asked about the type of house they’d like and how many bedrooms their dream home would consist of, all the respondents mentioned family, clearly an important factor when determining the right house especially for a millennial who might be closer to starting a family of their own and planning for the future.
Although generally knowledge from participants was good, there were some clear gaps which mostly centred around Stamp Duty. You may have seen a lot regarding Stamp Duty in the news of late due to the decision from the government to scrap this expensive fee for first time buyers (on property up to £300,000) so it’s quite surprising that the older participants still were not completely clued up on this.
The second part of the quiz was a visual based test, the Hatched team quizzed the participants with 20 images of homes currently for sale on their website and asked them to rank the houses from the least expensive to the most expensive. Sounds easy, we think…
Surprisingly enough, the year 7 students actually managed to get the most expensive and the least expensive houses correct which just goes to show that they know more than we might give them credit for! Both the A-Level student and the millennial also correctly guessed the house with the lowest asking price, but were both incorrect in guessing the most expensive property, as both thought one of the homes was in London, which skewed their answer.
Don’t even talk to us about London house prices, ahem.
For this task the year 7 students and A-Level student managed to get three answers correct whereas the millennial only got one correct answer. Not the result you expected? Us either!
Then when it came to guessing the asking price of the least and most expensive houses, it was the Year 7 students that had the most accurate guesses, blowing the millennials out of the water once again! Their combined price estimate for the most and least expensive properties was only £65,000 away from the true asking prices. The A-Level student was off by just over £500,000, while the young adult was off by £686,000 (more than 10x that of the Year 7 students). Eeeek!
This just goes to show that firstly, our youth are much more clued up than we might assume but also that there is a huge gap of knowledge with young adults and the housing market. It can be a minefield of confusing terms, jargon and expensive costs that may deter millennials from investigating whether they could potentially afford a place of their own, or how long it would take them to save the right deposit.
Don’t bury your head in the sand and don’t be afraid to ask for advice either! A good starting place is the Hatched Jargon Buster and House Buying Guide. Good luck.
The full videos can be viewed here!
Hatched is a subsidiary of the Connells Group (www.connellsgroup.co.uk), one of the UK’s largest and most successful estate agency and property services groups.
