Homeowners struggling to sell their properties should consider giving them names, according to the findings of research from property website Globrix.com.
The survey of 4,000 people found that 7% said they would be prepared to pay more for a home just because it had a name, rather than a house number.
With the average house valued at £216,968, this would work out as over £2,000 extra for the same property that simply had its postal address changed to a name. Land Registry transactional data reveals that 5.4% of the 26 million homes in the UK (approximately 1.4 million) have names.
Some 40% of those surveyed also said their perceptions of a property would change positively if it had a name rather than a number.
21% would assume it’s an older property with character if it had a name, while 19% would think it’s in a nice area. 11% would think it’s expensive while 4% would assume its occupants are wealthy.
Our preferred names for streets are Gardens (18% would like this in their address), Avenue (13%) and Lane (9%). Our least preferred street names, with just 0.3% voting them as their favourites, are Circle, Passage, Rise and Row.
The street names that had the biggest positive increase in people’s perceptions were Gardens (with 39% saying that their perceptions of a property would improve if it had this word in its address), Green (33%) and Mews (32%).
In contrast the biggest decreases in perceptions were caused by Passage (40%), Circus (38%) and Parade (31%).
Jennifer Warner from Globrix.com said: “It may sound ridiculous but it’s part of human psychology that small changes in perception can affect what we’re prepared to pay for something – and that includes homes. A property with a name has connotations that people are prepared to shell out extra for