Demand for family homes continues as Leamington named third happiest town in UK

Wed 25 Nov 2020

With Rightmove naming Leamington the third happiest town in the UK in its annual happiness index, estate agency ehB Residential says the rise in demand for family homes is likely to continue over the coming months.

The agency has seen a huge boom in sales this year, with many record months. In fact, even though November isn’t yet over, it has already agreed more than twice as many sales during the month as it did during the same period last year.

Last month it sold twice as many homes as it did in October 2019, and there is no sign of slowing down in the run up to Christmas.

Rightmove’s Happy at Home survey, whose results were published this week, quizzed 21,000 people who were asked to rate various aspects of where they lived, such as community spirit, access to green spaces and availability of local services.

Leamington is no stranger to being officially happy – it topped the list back in 2017.

This year it’s beaten only by St Ives in Cornwall, whose proximity to the sea helped nudge it to the top slot, and Skipton in Yorkshire.

ehB Residential office manager Clive Thompson said demand for family homes has exploded, with the coronavirus encouraging people to reassess their living requirements.

“St Ives is lovely, of course,” said Clive. “But if you need to be in the thick of it and have easy access to other parts of the country – as well as living somewhere with a great community spirit, beautiful architecture, excellent schools and surrounded by plenty of green space, then Leamington is definitely the place to be.

“The houses which are proving extremely popular are family homes – three-bedroom semis all the way through to large period villas and detached homes. Even those who would be returning to the office once things start to get back to normal next year know life and working patterns have changed irrevocably. For many it will be a mix of home and office working. And that means they need space in which to work when at home and perhaps don’t need to be quite as near the station or motorway network as before when they were doing a daily commute.

“It’s been an incredibly busy year and it shows no sign of abating. There’s still time to get your home listed before Christmas. There’s always a huge spike in Rightmove traffic between Christmas and New Year and with the festive season being so different this year it could be even greater.

“So many people are just keen to get on with selling and moving, ready for when the vaccine’s here and we can start enjoying life anew in one of the happiest towns in the UK in 2021.”