Pancake Day house prices fall flat, but butter bucks the trend

The latest market insight from quick sale specialists, Open Property Group, reveals that while there have been early signs of a house price resurgence so far in 2024, house prices on roads that have pancake-themed names have seen significant price drops over the past year, but one particular pancake road name has managed to buck the trend.

To mark the arrival of everyone’s favourite Tuesday of the year, Pancake Day, which this year falls on 20th February, Open Property Group has analysed sold price data for homes sold on roads with pancake-related names to see which command the highest house price, and how they have changed over the past year.

The research shows that the most valuable pancake-related road name is fittingly ‘Pancake’. Homes on roads whose names contain the word pancake achieved an average sold price of £721,111 in 2023 – by far the highest of all the pancake-related road names analysed by Open Property Group.

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While this is the most expensive Pancake Day road name, the value of homes on streets with ‘Pancake’ in the name have seen a significant drop over the past year, down from £972,500 in 2022. This marks an annual drop of -25.8%, or -£251,389.

In fact, due to the past year’s slower housing market conditions in which factors such as the high cost of borrowing led to a drop in buyer demand, all but one pancake-related road name has seen sold prices plummet.

This means that, despite ‘Pancake’s’ steep decline, it’s not the biggest pancake-themed price drop of the past year. That dubious honour goes instead to roads that contain the word ‘Milk’ which saw their average sold price fall by -37.6% between 2022 and 2023, culminating in an average of £295,000.

Road names containing ‘Lent’ have seen prices fall by -16.9%, while ‘Sugar’ (-14%) and ‘Lemon’ (-13.2%) have also seen significant drops.

The only pancake-related road names to see prices increase on the year are those containing the word ‘Butter’, which have bucked the trend by increasing by 2.9% to reach an average of £265,000.

CEO of Open Property Group, Jason Harris-Cohen, said, “Pancakes might not be as staple a part of our diet as elsewhere around the world, but homes across the nation will be flipping them in honour of Pancake Day this Tuesday.

Unfortunately our annual love for pancakes hasn’t been enough to sustain the high house prices associated with homes on roads containing the word itself. The market has been battered with uncertainty over the last year causing house prices to cool and this is no different when it comes to pancake-related properties.

The good news is that with property values having adjusted, pancake obsessed homebuyers could secure a flipping good deal. But you need to move swiftly because we’re already seeing signs of a market rebound and fully expect prices to keep rising into the Spring and Summer.”