Southgate, Crawley - A good place to buy?

I spent a sunny Sunday afternoon in Goffs Park and looking around at the large detached houses I wondered how the market compared with the general Crawley property market.  Southgate could be the leafiest suburb of Crawley and parts of it pre-date much of the new town that has sprung up around it.   The Southgate area has a property for everyone, from an impressive detached house close to the park for £450,000, equally impressive Victorian red brick houses closer to the town centre in the mid £300,000 range.  At the other end of the scale a very reasonably priced terraced house could be purchased for around the £250,000 mark in the area around Southgate Drive & the neighbourhood shopping parade.

Of the 87 properties for sale today in Southgate, 52 of them have a buyer and are sold subject to contract, which shows that if you want to sell, the chances of finding a buyer are good.  What is encouraging for everyone is that sales are evenly spread across the price ranges (from the period properties in Malthouse Road through to the 1970’s flats in the middle of the Southgate West by the Tesco Express).

Taking a general view on the property prices in Southgate I found that average property values in Southgate have risen by 20.87% in the last five years, compared to the Crawley average of only 19.53%.  That means house prices in Southgate have outperformed Crawley as a whole by 7%. 

As a rental agent I know that Southgate properties are always in demand because of their proximity to the town centre and the station but it’s also good to know that I can advise any investor or home buyer that bought in Southgate five years ago that their capital value has outgrown the local average.