The Solihull Property Market and The Euro 2016 Football Tournament

With the Referendum on EU membership out of the way, our households can concentrate on something European that doesn’t involve party political broadcasts – the Euro 2016 Football Tournament.  Don’t despair I’m not going to mention Iceland! Solihull is home to all different backgrounds and nationalities so if you're not lucky enough to be jetting off to France for the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament, have no fear! For a bit of fun. I have taken a look at which European people live in Solihull so I know who to soak up the best atmosphere with!

During my research some interesting numbers appear. Going into the Euro 2016 tournament, France were 3/1 favorite’s, then Germany 7/2, third Spain 11/2, then England 9/1, Italy 16/1, Poland 50/1, Romania and Wales at 100/1, Ireland at 150/1 and Northern Ireland 500/1.

Of the 98,817 residents of the Solihull Constituency, of the Home Nations going into the competition, 86,999 of them are from England, 1,157 from Wales, 404 from Northern Ireland and 1,471 from Ireland, although I do feel sorry for the 1,001 Scots who didn’t get into the finals. Now interestingly, looking at the Mainland Europeans residents in the Solihull Constituency, it might not surprise you that they make up 1.26% of the population as a whole in the West Midlands area.

However, even more fascinating, of those 1.26% European’s residents, 0.75% are from Western Europe because EU residents from Eastern Europe Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania) - only make up 0.51% of the population of the Solihull Constituency.

Broken down into the relevant football teams, there are in the Solihull Constituency …  

-108 French

-242 Germans

-116 Italians

-64 Spanish

-252 Polish

-39 Romanians

But what does this have to do with the Solihull property market? Quite a lot in fact. Many of these European people were economic migrants, especially those from Eastern Europe. There is no preferential treatment for council housing in Solihull, so EU migrants have in fact increased demand for privately rented accommodation in Solihull. 

This has meant, as demand for housing in Solihull has remained strong, Solihull landlords have continued to buy properties to rent out to keep up with this demand. Therefore, the value of every homeowner’s property in Solihull has been kept high because of the demand from these Solihull landlords buying starter homes to rent out, releasing existing homeowners to go up the property ladder – benefitting everyone in the chain.
In Solihull rents are 15.1% higher than they were in 2005, not bad when you consider we have had 38.52% inflation in the UK economy as a whole over the same 11 years.

EU migration has meant existing homeowners, landlords and the economy as a whole in Solihull (and the UK) have benefitted from better economic conditions, property prices not slumping whilst rents have been kept in check by wage inflation.