Where we buy in Wigan
WN1 and WN3 (Wigan), WN2 (Ince and Hindley), WN4 (Ashton-in-Makerfield), WN5 (Orrell and Pemberton), WN6 (Standish and Shevington), WN7 (Leigh), M29 (Tyldesley), M46 (Atherton)
The kind of houses we buy in Wigan
Wigan is coal country that stopped being coal country, and the housing carries the shape of that. Terraced rows built for colliery and mill workers make up much of Ince, Hindley, Pemberton and central Leigh.
Terraces here are among the most affordable in Greater Manchester. That has two consequences we see constantly. The first is a high proportion of rental stock, and landlords who bought cheaply years ago and are now selling because of rising costs and tightening rules. The second is that when a house does need work, the cost of the work can approach what the house is worth — which is exactly the point at which an open-market sale stops being realistic.
Former colliery land across the borough means some properties sit on or near land with a mining history. Coal Authority searches can surprise a buyer late in a sale and collapse it. If that has happened to you once already, it is worth knowing that it does not end a sale to us.
Standish and Shevington are the higher-value north — modern estates, detached and larger semis, and a much more conventional market.
Leigh, Atherton and Tyldesley sit to the east and are effectively their own towns, with their own centres and their own stock: terraces close in, interwar semis further out, and a fair amount of newer estate housing on the edges.
Ashton-in-Makerfield and Orrell run south and west towards the Merseyside boundary, mixing older terraces with postwar semis.
Why people in Wigan sell to us
Every situation below has a page of its own. None of them is unusual, and none of them needs explaining twice.