IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v51y2024i5p1137-1152.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Shrinking homes? The geographies of small domestic properties in London, 2010–2021

Author

Listed:
  • Phil Hubbard
  • Jon Reades
  • Hendrik Walter
  • Catrin Preston

Abstract

In the last decade, the UK’s media have highlighted an apparent rise in the number of homes below the recommended Nationally Described Space Standard for a one-person, one-bed home. However, evidence for the growth of ‘micro-apartments’ is mixed, with existing data making it difficult to map the geographies of sub-standard homes below the Local Authority scale. Focussing on London, this paper uses Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) as a source of floorspace data, matching this to the Land Registry’s Price Paid Data (PPD) and information from the London Planning Database. It quantifies the number of sub-standard homes in London registered for an EPC 2010–21, maps their location at the MSOA (neighbourhood) level, and compares property prices for small and larger homes. Focusing on newly-built homes, it shows that the numbers of small homes doubled across this period with growth in select outer London ‘hotspots’ accounting for much of this. It also demonstrates the overall numbers of small homes rose despite the formal incorporation of NDSS in the London Plan 2016, with the by-passing of space standards in property conversions under Permitted Development Rights, 2013–21 appearing relatively insignificant in explaining these temporal and spatial trends. Finally, it shows that the price per square metre of small homes often far exceeds that of much larger homes in the same area. While recognising the limitations of EPC data, our findings point to the need for further exploration of the enforcement of space standards, not least because it is often assumed that building more, smaller homes in the capital will create more affordable homes for Londoners.

Suggested Citation

  • Phil Hubbard & Jon Reades & Hendrik Walter & Catrin Preston, 2024. "Shrinking homes? The geographies of small domestic properties in London, 2010–2021," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 51(5), pages 1137-1152, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:51:y:2024:i:5:p:1137-1152
    DOI: 10.1177/23998083231208732
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23998083231208732
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/23998083231208732?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fuerst, Franz & McAllister, Pat & Nanda, Anupam & Wyatt, Pete, 2016. "Energy performance ratings and house prices in Wales: An empirical study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 20-33.
    2. Philippe Bracke, 2015. "House Prices and Rents: Microevidence from a Matched Data Set in Central London," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 43(2), pages 403-431, June.
    3. Melanie Lombard, 2019. "Informality as Structure or Agency? Exploring Shed Housing in the UK as Informal Practice," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 569-575, May.
    4. Chris Hamnett & Jonathan Reades, 2019. "Mind the gap: implications of overseas investment for regional house price divergence in Britain," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 388-406, March.
    5. Jessica Ferm & Ben Clifford & Patricia Canelas & Nicola Livingstone, 2021. "Emerging problematics of deregulating the urban: The case of permitted development in England," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(10), pages 2040-2058, August.
    6. Jenny Crawley & Phillip Biddulph & Paul J. Northrop & Jez Wingfield & Tadj Oreszczyn & Cliff Elwell, 2019. "Quantifying the Measurement Error on England and Wales EPC Ratings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-19, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ian Chng & Jonathan Reades & Phil Hubbard, 2024. "Planning deregulation as solution to the housing crisis: The affordability, amenity and adequacy of Permitted Development in London," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(3), pages 961-978, May.
    2. Jakub Galuszka, 2024. "BOATS AS HOUSING IN OXFORD, UK: Trajectories of Informality in a High‐Income Context," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 126-144, January.
    3. Camboni, Riccardo & Corsini, Alberto & Miniaci, Raffaele & Valbonesi, Paola, 2021. "Mapping fuel poverty risk at the municipal level. A small-scale analysis of Italian Energy Performance Certificate, census and survey data," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    4. Khazal, Aras & Sønstebø, Ole Jakob, 2020. "Valuation of energy performance certificates in the rental market – Professionals vs. nonprofessionals," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    5. Raul-Tomas Mora-Garcia & Maria-Francisca Cespedes-Lopez & V. Raul Perez-Sanchez & Pablo Marti & Juan-Carlos Perez-Sanchez, 2019. "Determinants of the Price of Housing in the Province of Alicante (Spain): Analysis Using Quantile Regression," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-33, January.
    6. Mats Wilhelmsson, 2019. "Energy Performance Certificates and Its Capitalization in Housing Values in Sweden," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-16, November.
    7. Daniel Melser & Robert J. Hill, 2019. "Residential Real Estate, Risk, Return and Diversification: Some Empirical Evidence," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 111-146, July.
    8. Felipe Encinas & Carlos Marmolejo-Duarte & Carlos Aguirre-Nuñez & Francisco Vergara-Perucich, 2020. "When Residential Energy Labeling Becomes Irrelevant: Sustainability vs. Profitability in the Liberalized Chilean Property Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-17, November.
    9. David Ley, 2021. "A regional growth ecology, a great wall of capital and a metropolitan housing market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(2), pages 297-315, February.
    10. Konstantin A Kholodilin & Andreas Mense & Claus Michelsen, 2017. "The market value of energy efficiency in buildings and the mode of tenure," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(14), pages 3218-3238, November.
    11. Baye, Vera & Dinger, Valeriya, 2022. "Investment Incentives of Rent Controls and Gentrification - Evidence from German Micro Data," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264120, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Taruttis, Lisa & Weber, Christoph, 2022. "Estimating the impact of energy efficiency on housing prices in Germany: Does regional disparity matter?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    13. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Heblich, Stephan & Seidel, Tobias, 2023. "Micro-geographic property price and rent indices," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    14. Dooruj Rambaccussing, 2021. "The price–rent ratio inequality in Scottish Cities: fluctuations in discount rates and expected rent growth," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(9), pages 1-15, September.
    15. Muthoka, Sila, 2015. "Household Demand for Housing in Kenya," MPRA Paper 65469, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Philippe Bracke, 2021. "How Much Do Investors Pay for Houses?," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 49(S1), pages 41-73, March.
    17. Andreas Mense, 2018. "The Value of Energy Efficiency and the Role of Expected Heating Costs," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 71(3), pages 671-701, November.
    18. Edward Shepherd & Matthew Wargent, 2024. "Embedding the land market: Polanyi, urban planning and regulation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(3), pages 905-926, May.
    19. Riccardo Camboni & Alberto Corsini & Raffaele Miniaci & Paola Valbonesi, 2021. "Mapping fuel poverty risk at the municipal level. A small-scale analysis of Italian Energy Performance Certificate, census and survey data," Post-Print hal-03349930, HAL.
    20. James Carroll & Eleanor Denny & Ronan C. Lyons, 2020. "Better energy cost information changes household property investment decisions: Evidence from a nationwide experiment," Trinity Economics Papers tep1520, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:51:y:2024:i:5:p:1137-1152. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.