For time immemorial, key items on the typical British buyer's wish list have been fairly predictable: good schools; off-street parking; a garden that catches the afternoon sun; kitchen-diner – or, in more recent years, ‘kitchen-family room’; then, much more frequently since Covid, a ‘work-from-home space’ of some description…
And of course, insulation/heat retention qualities to cope with our cold winters, as the cost of energy has soared…
But things are changing. Things are changing, indeed, as our climate patterns are changing.
As summers get hotter and more unpredictable, a new question is cropping up from buyers; not quite so much of "will this house keep me warm in January?", and more of "will this house keep me sane in July?!"
It’s something that is already affecting the way many buyers are searching – and with weather patterns likely to continue to inflict these hot-spell summers on us, it is something that could become much more impactful on house hunter decision-making over the course of the next decade.
Rightmove analysis, published after the record-breaking heatwave of summer 2022, offers some really useful evidence. In the days following that 40°C spike, searches for homes for sale with air conditioning more than tripled year-on-year, and searches for rentals with air conditioning increased by 75%.
On the single hottest day on record, buyer searches for air-conditioned homes nearly quadrupled.
It wasn't just air conditioning, either. Listings mentioning "ceiling fan" rose by a massive 700%.
Terms within property descriptions such as "airy" (something that used to be classed as a ‘danger’ word under old Property Misdescriptions Act 1996 guidance!) rose by 600%. Inclusion of the term "shade" increased 500%.
In other words, estate agents were already reaching for these words and phrases before buyers started asking for them, anticipating – as professional property marketers – what was going to become more important to them.
And that was four years ago.
Since then, we've had more heatwaves, not fewer. Now that we have just experienced two 30-plus degree heatwaves in the space of a single fortnight, news stories have abounded reporting portable air conditioning units selling out at retailers across the country.
This same attitude is filtering through to property searches – ‘air con’ in particular, but not uniquely.
It is becoming part of how people think about buying a home – and not just in a way that spikes for a fortnight in July.
There's something worth noting: air conditioning itself is still a rarity in UK homes, and that's not about to change overnight.
Retrofitting air conditioning units is an expensive exercise, and most British housing stock simply wasn't built with it in mind. The Victorian terraces and semi-detached villas of Herne Hill, in particular, don’t lend themselves easily to this kind of refit, especially where homeowners wish to retain period character – although, it is not impossible.
On top of that, if a property falls within a conservation area, there may very well be a need for Listed Building Consent – or at the very least it would be advisable to check Article 4 Directions with the local council (and remember, our area splits between two local authorities, so make sure you check with the correct one).
Air conditioning itself is only one solution to the problem, however, not the only solution, particularly relevant for more sustainability-minded consumers who poll negatively when it comes to the higher energy consumption and greater environmental impact that many air-conditioning options have.
Increasingly, better-informed buyers are now asking ever more pertinent questions about how a home handles heat – before they've even booked a viewing.
And it is the overall thermal performance of properties that might be the hero of this story. Good insulation and double or especially triple glazing don't just keep heat in during winter; the same principles can keep heat out in summer.
A sustainability adviser at national housebuilder Cala, increasingly moving towards more sustainable modes of building new homes, made exactly this point to Rightmove: new homes built with strong insulation and features like triple glazing are naturally better at staying cool, because thermal efficiency works both ways.
Then there's ventilation, shading, orientation… all things that estate and letting agents have always been keen to talk about, but which now carry more weight in a buyer’s or a tenant’s search criteria.
A south-facing conservatory that once sold itself on natural light might now prompt a question about how it copes in a heatwave. A conservatory where the property owners have upgraded the roof for heat-reflective panels – or even blinds – might just be the sort of detail that wins you a sale or rental application.
Overall, the national understanding of the issue of domestic cooling is still catching up with reality.
Researchers at the Energy Demand Research Centre have pointed out that Britain's housing policy has historically focused almost entirely on keeping homes warm, with far less attention paid to how homes cope with increasing heat and especially with prolonged heatwaves. There is still limited hard data on how many households actually have some form of cooling, although the figure cited by Rightmove in their 2022 report was that it stood at just 2%.
The Grantham Research Institute at LSE has gone further, arguing that overheating risk is now widespread enough that buyers and renters would benefit from clearer information about a property's thermal performance before they commit – essentially in the same way an EPC tells a buyer about energy efficiency.
This is not yet standard practice. Nevertheless, it points to where buyer expectations may be heading, and when estate agents can speak confidently about a property's performance during hot summers – not just cold winters – we can push those properties ahead of that likely coming curve.
This is something that is going to become much more important as the British public becomes more used to AI search; Rightmove doesn’t have a filter for ‘Air Conditioning’… but as AI search improves, it won’t have to. Buyers will be able to ask their favourite AI companion, or perhaps soon enough even a dedicated AI-driven property search portal, for properties boasting certain specific features.
As we get more used to hotter summers over the next five to ten years, you should get used to seeing much more concerted effort to list those sorts of cooling, energy-efficient and temperature-control features in property listings.
If you are thinking of selling your home and wondering whether it is worth improving the kitchen or bathroom in order to improve your appeal, it might be worth asking yourself the question: are you actually focusing on what modern buyers will be searching for?
None of this means your property needs an air conditioning unit bolted to the wall, especially if you have reservations about their environmental impact – although, do note, this is a serious conversation and has become a serious ambition for that industry, with many manufacturers seeking ways to create greener, environmentally friendly, sustainable and less energy-hungry solutions.
There are also other things to think about – things that are either worth mentioning in case you might not think of otherwise, or which could be undertaken instead of something as invasive or disruptive as retrofitting mechanical devices like air-conditioning, etc.; for example: cross-ventilation, mature trees that might shade a southwest-facing room; or, in period properties, thicker walls that hold their temperature, with higher ceilings that promote air circulation and cooling.
And of course, if you have carried out a recent retrofit, or if you have replaced windows with particularly high-performance glazing that advertises cooling qualities, those things will certainly provide good material for an estate agent’s property write-up.
If you are thinking about selling your home, it's a genuinely useful conversation to have in advance – especially if that move is some months distant.
The record hot summers of the past few years may turn out to be the new normal rather than the exception. Homes that were built, or have been adapted, to cope with that are going to become more valuable – something you will definitely notice in new build developments. We are already seeing it.
If you can position your home to appeal to a market of buyers showing an increasing concern for weather extremes – both hot and cold – then you will be putting yourself ahead of much of your local competition in the months and years ahead.
We are required by law to conduct anti-money laundering checks on all those selling or buying a property. Whilst we retain responsibility for ensuring checks and any ongoing monitoring are carried out correctly, the initial checks are carried out on our behalf by Lifetime Legal who will contact you once you have agreed to instruct us in your sale or had an offer accepted on a property you wish to buy. The cost of these checks is £85 (incl. VAT), which covers the cost of obtaining relevant data and any manual checks and monitoring which might be required. This fee will need to be paid by you in advance of us publishing your property (in the case of a vendor) or issuing a memorandum of sale (in the case of a buyer), directly to Lifetime Legal, and is non-refundable. We will receive some of the fee taken by Lifetime Legal to compensate for its role in the provision of these checks.