During my research some interesting numbers appear. Going
into the Euro 2016 tournament, France were 3/1 favourite’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 (although Leicester were
5000/1 at the start of last season).
Of the 92,163 residents of the Harlow Constituency for
Westminster, of the Home Nations going into the competition, 80,401 of them are
from England, 561 from Wales, 216 from Northern Ireland and 883 from Ireland,
although I do feel sorry for the 900 Scots who didn’t get into the finals. Now
interestingly, looking at the Mainland Europeans residents in the Harlow Constituency,
it might not surprise you that they make up 3.42% of the population as a whole
in the Westminster area.
However, even more fascinating, of those 3.42% European’s
residents, 1.17% are from Western Europe because EU residents from Eastern
Europe - i.e. the Accession Countries to the EU between 2003 to 2007 (Czech
Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Bulgaria and Romania) - only make up 2.25% of the population of the Harlow Constituency.
Broken down into the relevant football teams, there are in
the Harlow Constituency …
89 French people
302 Germans
233 Italians
114 Spanish
1,028 Poles
153 Romanians
… I feel sorry for the Spanish football supporters in Harlow!
But what does this have to do with the Harlow property
market? Quite a lot in fact. Many of these European people were economic
migrants, especially those from Eastern Europe. A lot of people’s concerns over
migration are exaggerated as this EU migration has acted to fill gaps in skills
and labour supply during growth periods of the mid 2000’s and subsequently over
the last five years in Harlow, EU migrants have done little to displace native
workers but do the jobs us Brits don’t often want to do. There is no
preferential treatment for council housing in Harlow, so EU migrants have in
fact increased demand for privately rented accommodation in Harlow.
This has meant, as demand for housing in Harlow has remained
strong, Harlow landlords have continued to buy properties to rent out to keep
up with this demand. Therefore, the value of every homeowner’s property in Harlow
has been kept high because of the demand from these Harlow landlords buying
starter homes to rent out, releasing existing homeowners to go up the property
ladder – benefiting everyone in the chain.
However, rents have remained relatively subdued, in Harlow rents
are only 18.3% 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 Harlow (and the UK) have benefitted from better
economic conditions, property prices not slumping whilst rents have been kept
in check by wage inflation. Now I wonder who will win the footy? Back to the TV!