The implosion of Birmingham City Council will wreak havoc across the local area with all ‘unessential’ services mothballed but the housing market is likely to remain unharmed, research from Barrows and Forrester reveals. 

Last week, Birmingham City Council declared that it was effectively bankrupt and it’s thought that 20 other councils could be at risk of following in the path of Britain’s second city. But analysis of house prices across five councils to have previously declared effective bankruptcy – Northamptonshire Council, Hackney Council, Thurrock Council, Croydon Council and Slough Council – show that prices still increased at an average rate of 3.2% in the following year. 

Hackney saw the strongest performance with house prices climbing 13.6% in the 12 months following its October 2000 declaration. A year after Slough Council did the same in July 2021 house prices increased by 8.7%, with Northamptonshire house prices seeing a 2.3% increase a year after its council declaring effective bankruptcy in February 2018. 

But a year on from Thurrock Council’s declaration house prices in the area had fallen by -4%, with Croydon house prices following suit at the end of last year (November 2022), falling by -4.5%.