Bedroom cracks
Posted: March 29, 2013 Filed under: Housing benefit, Legal, Northern Ireland, Welfare reform Leave a commentNorthern Ireland could be set to scrap the bedroom tax as fears grow about the impact on tenants when it is imposed elsewhere from Monday.
The Northern Ireland Assembly has still not approved the Stormont Welfare Reform Bill and is not due to discuss it again until April 16.
However, housing organisations believe the Northern Ireland government is now increasingly likely to decide not to impose the size criteria despite the fact that it will have to meet the £17 million cost from elsewhere in its budget.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Shappsenfreude
Posted: March 27, 2013 Filed under: Empty homes, Housebuilding, Local government Leave a commentSo, shockingly, it turns out that the government’s ‘powerful new incentive’ to councils to approve more homes may not be working out quite like that.
A damning report on the New Homes Bonus published today by the National Audit Office (NA0) is deeply embarrassing for the DCLG and former housing minister Grant Shapps but it hardly comes as a huge surprise.
The flaws were pretty clear right from the beginning. As I argued when the first allocations were made, it is not really a bonus and it amounts to a mechanism for transferring funding from deprived areas of the north to affluent areas of the south for homes that would have been built anyway.
The rise of the property-owning plutocracy
Posted: March 8, 2013 Filed under: Buy to let, Housing market, Labour market, Private renting, Right to buy 12 CommentsIf you had to think of one article of faith for the Conservative Party, a property-owning democracy would come pretty close to the top of the list.
David Cameron reached back to the idea in his ‘magic money tree’ speech yesterday:
‘It is important that people who work hard and do the right thing are able to buy a home. As I said in my party conference speech – it is a rebuke to those of us who believe in property owning democracy that the average age for someone buying their first home today, without any help from their parents is 33 years old. And we are determined to tackle that.’
The prime minister was clearly hinting at something to come either in the Budget or the housing announcement he’s planning just before it. Whether that’s a new stamp duty holiday, or an extension to FirstBuy or even perhaps making existing homes eligible for NewBuy remains to be seen.
Dynamic duo
Posted: March 6, 2013 Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market, Mortgages, Private renting Leave a commentSo will the next big housing announcement from David Cameron and Nick Clegg amount to any more than the last three?
The Financial Times reported yesterday that the coalition double act are ‘drawing up schemes to revive the flatlining housebuilding industry and help people get on the housing ladder’. On the eve of the Budget on March 20 they will make a series of announcements including measures on shared equity schemes, social housing and support for first-time buyers.
Despite the scoop, even the FT admits that this ‘may be treated with some scepticism given that such announcements on housebuilding have become a regular feature of the coalition – while the industry has continued to stagnate’.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Owning fall-out
Posted: March 4, 2013 Filed under: Buy to let, Housing market, Private renting Leave a commentShould we simply be accepting the continuing shift from home ownership to private renting as somehow inevitable?
That’s one of the many housing questions posed in the latest edition of the UK Housing Review. Now in its 21st edition and published by the Chartered Institute of Housing, the review has long been the bible for housing nerds but it is the best source of authoritative information on tenure and any other aspect of housing you care to think of.
The CIH has press released the story that home ownership has slumped among the young: from 39 to 14 per cent for the 16-24s and 67 to 43 per cent among the 25-34s. However, the rate is falling for older people too.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing