A brand new suite of indicators on housing affordability

Housing affordability is a key issue affecting communities across the county.  Being able to understand housing affordability, accurately and at a local level is incredibly valuable. Therefore, we are really excited to announce that we have added a suite of new indicators on housing affordability in Community Insight.

The Research team here at OCSI have constructed the indicators through combining data from Land Registry Price Paid Data for December 2015 to November 2016 with small area estimated weekly income data from the ONS 2013/14. There are eight different indicators available on Community Insight. 

Indicators available

Housing affordability data for average house prices  (OA level)

We have produced four indicators around housing affordability for average house prices at Output Areas (OA level). The indicators were created by combining data from Land Registry Price Paid Data (December 2015 to November 2016) with small area estimated weekly income data from the ONS (2013/14). We have used data published at OA level, the smallest of the Census geographies, as this provides a very detailed picture at local level.The indicators available are:

  • Gap between average house prices and 4.5 times average annual salary
  • Housing affordability: Total price/salary ratio (average house)
  • Housing affordability: Savings/income ratio (average house)
  • Housing affordability: Savings required for 15% mortgage deposit and stamp duty for an average priced property

Housing affordability data for entry level properties (MSOA level)

We have also produced four indicators around housing affordability for entry level properties. Entry level properties are defined as house prices in the lower quartile for a particular local area for England and Wales. These indicators give a useful insight to the local picture for first time buyers, and can contribute to the overall picture of sustainable and good growth in a local area. Creating these indicators using underlying OA level data for the whole country, would be very tricky as it relies upon at least 4 entry level properties being sold within each output area. Instead for these indicators, we have used MSOA level Land Registry Price Paid data as the underlying data. The indicators available are:

  • Gap between average house prices and 4.5 times average annual salary
  • Housing affordability: Total price/salary ratio (entry level houses)
  • Housing affordability: Savings/income ratio (entry level houses)

  • Housing affordability: Savings required for 15% mortgage deposit and stamp duty for an entry level property

To learn more about the housing affordability indicators check out our blog on the OCSI website.

Housing affordability indicator on mpa blog

 

Explore these new indicators in your Community Insight 
To find these new indicators in your Community Insight click on the Group Admin tab and go onto the Manage Indicators page, search within the Unassigned theme for the full names of the indicators (see above) or for the following keywords: gap, savings, affordability. If you need a reminder of how to add new indicators to your maps and dashboards, check out this article in our Knowledge Base.

Please note, in cases where we add new indicators which we believe to be of real interest to most users we will place the indicators directly into the default themes. This is the case for the below two Housing indicators. However, if you have already customised your themes and indicators all new indicators added will be within the Unassigned theme.

  • Savings required for 15% mortgage deposit and stamp duty (entry level houses)
  • Gap between house prices and 4.5 times average annual salary (entry level houses)

 

View a list of all the datasets available in Community Insight.
To see a list of all the datasets available in Community Insight and also a full list of the new updates check out this Knowledge Base article.

If you have any questions about these new indicators, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on support@ocsi.co.uk or give us a call on 01273 810270.

Please note, the housing affordability indicators are not available for Community Insight Wales or Community Insight Scotland.

Creating stock groups just got even easier

Creating stock groups by drawing on a map is up there as one of the most used features in Community Insight. And although it was already pretty simple to create your local neighbourhoods and communities, we wanted to make it even easier.

We have added brand new functionality to make it quicker and easier to find the area you are talking about. When drawing a stock group on the map, you can now click on the Jump to Location button, enter a postcode or a place name and hey presto –  you will be re-centred to that area on the map.

 Li blog Jump to location button

 

To refresh your knowledge on the different ways of creating stock groups in Community Insight, check out the stock group section in the Knowledge Base.

If you have any questions or feedback, please get in touch with us on support@ocsi.co.uk