WHILE house sales are picking up, Colchester is suffering from a new symptom of the recent recession – an abundance of flats.

People are finding it harder than they did two decades ago to secure the money needed to buy their First home.

They are waiting longer, skipping buying a flat and heading straight for a family home.

It means the large number of flats being built as part of regeneration projects, such as those at the Hythe, the old garrison site and Lexden, are all vying for the attention of buyers. And many are being left on the shelf.

Martin Webb, senior negotiator at Boydens estate agents, in Crouch Street, said: “You only have to drive to the Hythe and see all the For Sale signs. New homes are being built every day and a lot of them are standing unsold.

“We have had instances where we have had to drop prices by as much as 50 per cent. They are still quite a decent price, but it is still a situation where the vendor is having to take less for their property.

“We had one that just sold for £125,000 but it had to be reduced from £142,000.”

Mr Webb said it is a national problem. He added: “The cost of land is so high, the developers have to build flats to make their money. Therefore, they are building a higher amount of units.”

He said there are also a number of new flats waiting to be sold in the Lexden area.

Mr Webb explained the market had slowed down during the election period, while the traditional spring upturn had not yet happened in Colchester.

First-time buyers were once 18 or 19, but are now older and more cautious, staying with their parents until their mid-twenties.

When they do eventually fly the nest, many are renting.

Businessman Terry Sutton, who runs a property maintenance company, looking after about 5,000 flats, said there was a thriving rental market in Colchester.

He said: “I am not involved in the rental side, but I have noticed there are more flats coming on to the market for rental. There must be an element of people not being able to sell.

“The lenders are just not giving mortgages as readily as they were, so people are struggling to buy. They are waiting longer and starting out on the ladder with a house, rather than a flat as they used to.

“In my business, it is good there are all these flats and I would want more, but something needs to be done if they are being left empty.”

Mr Sutton, who is also a Tory councillor in the town, said a solution for the glut of flats could be plugging the gap in social housing.

He said: “The developers have got to sell them somehow, so social housing would be a good idea.”

A 2008 report by a property analyst showed there were too many flats being built in a number of places, but Colchester was not among them.

The high cost of land, the rise of the buy-to-let market and tightening of mortgage markets were cited as reasons for this.

A housing market assessment, carried out for Colchester, Braintree and Chelmsford councils, in 2008, found there was a real need for flats because they were affordable.

It said there was perhaps a perceived excess of flats in the east of Colchester, but predicted it would ease by 2016, with the continued regeneration of areas, such as the Hythe, where major improvements to the train station have been carried out, making it more desirable to buyers.

Karen Syrett, spatial policy manager at Colchester Council, said an inspector’s report is expected later in the year into the council’s development policies.