Hello Readers,
 
As I continue with my series of looking at the cheapest and most expensive roads for 2022 in Chatham, Rochester and Gillingham, this week I’m looking at Chatham.
 
Chatham tends to be the most affordable of the three areas and last year was listed as second for the UK when it comes to rental growth.
 
Out of a total of 788 roads in chatham, I was only able to locate sales transactions for 241, meaning there are quite a lot of roads where no properties were sold last year.
 
This seems quite a high number, but I compiled data from Zoopla, so unless listings were removed prior to sale we have the full picture. Starting with the cheapest prices, let’s take a look.

Cheapest Sale at £84,000 – Flat 10, Apollo House, Illustrious Close, Chatham

It probably won’t come as a surprise that the cheapest sale in Chatham was a studio apartment.

This property was listed as an ideal first time buy or buy to let and here’s a link to the archived listing. By my calculations could potentially have been purchased with a salary of around £17k only based on a five times salary mortgage.

I’d be interested to hear what you think about this property being marketed as a buy-to-let purchase. Do studio apartments form part of your investment strategy?

Second Cheapest Sale at £100,000 – 3 Silver Hill Gardens, Chatham, ME4 5RG

The second cheapest property was this one bedroom, one bathroom leasehold Maisonette in need of quite some love.

Selling for £100k, you can view the archived listing on Rightmove here. This has almost got the word ‘investor’ written all over it.

Third Cheapest Sale at £105,000 – 20 Connaught Mews, Connaught Road, Chatham, ME4 5DS

This listing has since been archived on Rightmove, so I am unable to locate any internal images, however the Zoopla statistics I used highlight that this property is a 61 sq metre, leasehold studio apartment.

As a starter home to get on the housing ladder it’s not a bad little purchase to be honest. For example, with a 10% deposit your mortgage payments at 6% would be £495 on a 25 year term.

Interestingly, when you consider bills this property will be quite a bit more expensive than an en-suite HMO room. I guess the biggest difference is the way you have the entire property to yourself as opposed to sharing living space.

Most Expensive Sale at £805,000 – 176 Robin Hood Lane, Chatham, ME5 9LA

If you’ve dreamt of a detached property with a pool, this four bedroom three bathroom detached house with two reception rooms would have been ideal.

I think this property is just stunning and you can have a nose around it on the listing here. Since its previous sale in October 2016, this property has increased in value by a whopping £325k!

Second Most Expensive Sale at £720,000 – 38 Barleymow Close, Chatham, ME5 8JZ

This stunning five-bedroom, three bathroom detached bungalow was the most expensive sale in Chatham during 2022.

Quite a bit south of Chatham town centre, you can preview this listing here.

According to the listing on Zoopla, this property increased in value by 316% or £547,000 since its last sale in January 2002. That’s capital appreciation of just over £2,000 PER MONTH if you calculate on a linear basis. This compares to the overall average increase for detached houses in Medway at 202% for the same period!

Third Most Expensive Sale at £600,000 – 18 Tunbury Avenue, Chatham, ME5 9EH

This rather unassuming four-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow comes in third place on our list. Very well presented, you can see this property here.

I would be interested to see if planning would be granted for a two-storey house, given that the properties either side are so very different.

Looking back through the planning portal, this property has planning granted in 2006 as a new build, extension in 2007 and conservatory along with a garage in 2008. I just wonder why the owners decided to build as a bungalow!

When we look at house prices in general, you will see how the majority of streets fall between the £180k – £330k range (64%). This will be interesting to compare back to in five years time!

I trust you found this article insightful – central Chatham is an excellent area for investors and you will see how, as you get further away from the town centre, you get some large and rather luxurious properties.

If you would like to access the full list, you can download it from here and do keep your eyes peeled for my final article covering Rochester.

Hasan