Doorbellology

There’s a reason why that hideous new estate they’ve built on the disused asbestos factory site is called Foxes Barn or St Cuthberts Reach. It’s called doorbellology – the science – OK, pseudo-science that tells us that our addresses can influence the value of our properties.

UNLUCKY13?
Received wisdom has it that number 13s won’t sell. In the latest Department for Communities and Local Government release of 120,000 house sales, only 1,190 number 13s homes were sold – compared with 2,067 number 12s and 1,854 number 14s. So trying to sell a number 13 is surely a bad bet. But… the average price[1] of a number 13 is nearly £15,700, above the average for a number 12. That’s a 6.2% differential.
So why are developers building fewer number 13s? The ratio of new build number 13s to 12s has fallen by 12% compared with existing properties. Might some doorbellology improve their profits?
 
WHO IS THE PATRON SAINT OF ESTATE AGENTS?
Actually every saint is. After ‘The’, the most common name of a street where sales occurred (2,040 or 1.7%) started with a saint’s name.
And saints’ streets are a good bet to live in because a ‘St Something’ address is worth 5% (£13,427) more than the England and Wales median. So while homes in streets with saints names may be more common, they appear also to be in better areas than most for prices.

The word ‘High’ was the next most common start to a street name. However, this was almost half as less frequent, at 1,096 sales.

DO NAMES MATTER?
Well, among the top 5% of streets ranked by their average value, a home on a street named after a girl are worth 2.2% (£16,746) more than ones on those with boys’ names. Once the classical references to Aristotle and Agamemnon are dispensed with, the boys’ names are fewer and, frankly, a bit scratchy such as Waldemar and Onslow.

When it comes to naming valuable homes, being rustic is the best bet. Names referencing trees or woods are by far the most common in the top 5% sales by price, followed distantly by animals (often birds) and more general rural features.

Across the value range, having ‘Willow’ at the start of your house name added 0.8% to the median (middle) value compared with the national median. So, short of moving your house to the country, cultivating a tree in the back garden might be a good plan.

ALWAYS A FOREIGN FIELD?
Exotic locations may work for house names, but the smart money for the expensive sales are much more likely to be in streets named after more European locations, like Luxemburg (sic), Frankfurt, and especially Spanish or related locations such as Cadiz, Palma and Iberian. Often, the streets are named from the by-jingo School Atlas, like Borneo and Burma, perhaps suggesting that old streets have undergone major regeneration.
 
AND THE PICK OF THE NAMES?
Who can better the home sold called WI-WURRIE.

After all, it’s just bricks and mortar!

Derek Long, a director of housing and data consultancy, arc4
First published in Inside Housing Magazine