Glasdir Update

If the thought of spending £245,000 on a bungalow that you’re gonna knock down anyway seems a bit unproductive, vain, excessive or futile, you could always try Glasdir. You would certainly get better value for money on this controversial housing estate. £245,000 would get you a five bed house at Glasdir and that’s about the *minimum* price of an established three or four bed detached house elsewhere in town. Currently, there’s a four-bed terrace on Market Street at £100,000 more, and a detached house for the same price on Greenfield Road.

After a very slow start, all but a couple of houses of the original Glasdir release are now occupied. Those unsold result from deals falling trough. Taylor Wimpey (as it’s now branded*) has been building the three storey town houses and flats first in order to get some immediate return on its capital. It recognised that the market was stronger for such housing, even though it originally pushed these as buy-to-rent (but that market’s dire).

The taller housing tends to dominate the development but around the back are some well designed houses to a better scale and of a better nature—four bed detached at £230,000; £180,000 for semis. Again, good value.

You’ll have noticed that Taylor Wimpey’s now continuing to build its houses at Glasdir, to the east of those it’s already finished. These will generally be of a two-storey scale, though it includes three bedroom, three storey town houses. It’s been intermittently pushing these in the local press recently, with one pre-Christmas advert advising buyers that Siôn Corn/Santa would be present. Saturday 20th February’s Daily Post had a full page advertisement feature on Glasdir, advising among other things that one of the three storey houses is about to feature as a show home. The launch on 20 March comes with refreshments via Tŷ’r Goron/Crown House catering.

If the prospect of Tŷ’r Goron won’t get you salivating, the Taylor Wimpey description of Glasdir will. “Fantastic development”, “surrounded by scenic countryside” and “idyllic” are terms Taylor Wimpey uses. None of these are incorrect though all of them perhaps do need qualification. But there are worse places to live. It’s interesting that last year’s blog survey showed that just over 80 per cent of people felt that they would *not* buy at Glasdir. That may have changed as the site develops. With a shared equity stake at 15 per cent and three bedroom houses from £168,000, these might appeal to locals trying to get on the ladder. So long as £168,000 isn’t too much. By comparison, *two* bed bungalows elsewhere come in at about £160-190,000. Before Christmas, it was possible to get the last three bed at £160,000 including carpets.

The watchwords are still: value for money.

*The current house building brand is Taylor Wimpey. Just to confuse matters, it started out as Bryant Homes, then Taylor Woodrow, then Wimpey, then back to Bryant (green adverts, then red/blue ones), now Taylor Wimpey. And to confuse matters further, Glasdir started as Rhuthun Parc, then Parc Rhuthun, then Glasdir Vale before (sensibly) morphing to Glasdir.