Member Article

Claim immigration damages house prices questioned by leading property boss

Claim immigration damages house prices questioned by leading property boss

A leading property expert has rubbished a report by Home Office advisers claiming that immigration damages house prices.

Ajay Jagota of sales and lettings business KIS described a report by the Migration Advisory Committee claiming a “significant negative association” between property values and immigration as “incomplete and bordering on insensitive”, adding “are they claiming that house prices would be soaring in deserted and derelict estates? I very much doubt it.”

Research by the committee, an independent public body which advises the government on migration issues, claims house prices fall by 1.6% if the immigrant population of an area grows by as little as 1%.

MAC says its research suggests the trend is caused by a range of reasons, including migrants being more willing to live in shared housing – causing a general fall in demand for properties – and the overall decline in wealth in an area where lower-paid immigrants replace British-born workers.

Ajay Jagota of prominent property business KIS questioned the report’s methodology and asked the author’s if they thought property prices were likely to rise on estates which would otherwise be empty.

The firm manages properties for over 700 landlords from branches in South Shields, North Shields, Sunderland and Welwyn Garden City and has recently expanded into residential sales. KIS was named a Letting Agent of the Year at the 2013 Landlord and Letting Awards.

Ajay said:

“MAC’s report is openly acknowledges that its research is almost entirely desk-based. In other words, the authors claim to instinctively know the ins and the outs of the North East property market while sitting at a desk down south.

“Even that research only involves data from 159 of the 433 English and Welsh authorities. That’s only a third. As our monthly North East housing report demonstrates, you can’t possibly draw conclusions about a regional housing market using data from one or two areas as prices can wildly vary from street to street, let alone town to town.

“Even the data they do have dates from 2010 and 2011,a time of recession and falling wages across the board and where people were much more likely to have had to move to find work. All wage levels and property prices from this period must be seen in the context of the prevailing economic conditions.

“My feeling is that if their research was more up to date they might get very different results. As it stands, I find their findings incomplete and bordering on insensitive.

“Even assuming there is some credence in what is being said what would the situation be if immigrants didn’t move in to these apparently abandoned areas. Are they claiming that house prices would be soaring in deserted and derelict estates? I very much doubt it.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ajay Jagota .