"Postcode snobbery" has been around almost as long as postcodes themselves, and certain postcodes can attract a property price premium.
I guess we maybe shouldn't be surprised that such a thing exists, in Britain, where so many people are obsessed with home ownership....
Fresh research by Savills, which sells 'upmarket' properties, has found significant evidence of irrational postcode bias....
The findings show just how deeply postcode discrimination has entered the UK housing market. The same houses on the wrong side of a postcode divide consistently sell for a lot less than identical houses in the more desirable postcode. It wasn't the house or even the street itself that made the difference – it was the postcode as a badge of assumed status and desirability.
In the majority of cases, potential buyers would rule out totally suitable homes simply because they were in a less fashionable postcode.
Examples of this abound. In London, properties within the W8 (Kensington) postcode zone command massive premiums compared to nearby areas like W14 (West Kensington), even though they are not physically far apart. Similarly, in Manchester, an M20 address in Didsbury is highly sought after, while nearby postcodes can devalue the price of a house even if the houses are virtually identical.
In one famous instance, Wirral residents – "embarrassed to have the L postcode of nearby Liverpool" – fought to get Royal Mail to upgrade them to the CH of wealthy Cheshire instead.
Not very clever...?
Postcode snobbery is a symptom of a broader human tendency to brand and judge by surface labels. As the Savills report itself observes, more and more, it is not always the quality of the housing stock, or even the social mix of the location, but the code itself that determines value.
IMO it's a little silly applying this to property, which is just so expensive. It's a MASSIVE risk too.... investing six figures on a punt that the particular micro-area you're investing in is still going to be as fashionable going forwards...
Especially when the real trick is to invest in up and coming areas which have the potential of growth...
Unless of course you're too rich to care, but that's not that many people!