Better transport gives Norfolk property a lift

Norfolk is famous for many things including its celebrity strewn coastal villages, wide open skies, meandering narrow boat Broads and Norwich Cathedral, but for many house hunters it’s the county’s house prices which prove the greatest pull.

Norfolk house prices are consistently cheaper than those of neighbouring Suffolk or Cambridgeshire and very nearly half of those in London. According to Nationwide Building Society figures for the final quarter of 2013, the average asking price for a home in Norfolk was £176,939, yet buying an average London abode would set you back £345,186.

These price gaps may be about to narrow. The long awaited £105 million upgrade of the main A11 road between Norwich and the M11 is now nearing completion, bringing Norwich within just an hour’s commute from Cambridge and 25 minutes closer to London by car. The improved A11 is running ahead of schedule and surprisingly on budget, and it is claimed, it will bring some half a billion pounds of benefits to Norfolk.

Improvements to journey times are being prepared for those travelling to and from Norfolk by rail too. Chancellor George Osborne this month said he supported a campaign to cut train journey times from Norwich to London by half an hour and from Ipswich to London by ten minutes.

These transport upgrades will make Norwich and the surrounding countryside a more likely choice for London and Cambridge commuters and, it is reasonable to predict, higher house prices will follow suit as demand ramps up.

With these improvements in mind, increasing numbers of people are already now searching for homes in Norfolk, Garrington has observed, helped by figures that show East Anglia is Britain’s driest, a serious consideration following the year’s nationwide floods.

And they are in good company. Kate and Wills recently announced that they have found their ideal home in Norfolk, a ten-bedroom Georgian mansion on the Queen’s 20,000 acre Sandringham Estate.

If you have a property-related enquiry about Norfolk or need the help of an East Anglian property finder, contact Garrington now.