A lot of quid, not much quo
Posted: September 10, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding 9 CommentsThe bail-out of the banks quite rightly led to calls for them to do something in return. Why is nobody saying the same about the bail-out of the big housebuilders?
Each new scheme for the banks has come with strings attached designed to ensure that they make more loans. None have worked so far but a quid pro quo is seen as a political necessity every time a new scheme is suggested. Under the latest wheeze, the Bank of England’s Funding for Lending scheme, banks can borrow money at just 0.25 per cent for four years but if their lending falls between now and 2013 the rate on the loan will be steadily increased.
Contrast that with what has happened with the major housebuilders. Just as with the banks, the credit crunch triggered a crisis for the industry, this one caused by having paid too much for land that fell in value and sites full of homes they could not sell. Just as with the banks they have been bailed out by the taxpayer – and, just to be clear, we are not talking about tens or hundreds of millions but several billion pounds.
Third time lucky?
Posted: September 6, 2012 Filed under: Affordable housing, Housebuilding Leave a commentSo here it is: what by my reckoning the coalition government’s third housing strategy in two and a half years.
Mark one was the assumption that implementing the coalition’s programme for government would do the trick. The ‘powerful new incentive’ of the new homes bonus would persuade local authorities to approve more homes and get housebuilding moving. The Localism Act would turn help turn NIMBYs into YIMBYs. And FirstBuy would give a time-limited kick-start to the housing market with equity loans for first-time buyers.
When that didn’t work, Mark two came last November. The big idea was NewBuy, a government-backed mortgage indemnity scheme to give 95 per cent mortgages on new homes to up to 100,000 buyers. That was backed up by funds for custom homes and empty homes, a consultation on right to buy 2 and another review of investment in the private rented sector.
Home delivery
Posted: September 5, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning, Private renting Leave a commentIt’s still very early days but the appointments of the new ministerial team at the DCLG team are already raising some questions for me.
According the line being spun by the new Conservative chair Grant Shapps on the Today programme this morning, the government is now at the delivery stage. Within that context, new housing minister Mark Prisk’s previous job as construction minister should bode well for the top priority of building more homes. Meanwhile the appointment of Nick Boles as planning minister looks to signal a fresh emphasis on reforming the planning system to boost the economy.
However, a brief look at their track record suggests some intriguing possibilities on policy – as well as some potential tensions. Here are three initial questions that occur to me about the green belt, private rented sector regulation and housebuilding.
Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing.
Going for gold
Posted: July 31, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market Leave a commentAs the Olympics gives a daily boost to London’s image as a global city, how long will it be before the government acts on overseas property ownership?
The evidence on the scale of the ‘investment’ and the impact on the rest of the London housing market is mounting steadily. In March, I blogged about a report from the IPPR arguing that London property has become a sort of global reserve currency for the wealthy elite and warned about the effect on housing across the capital as billionaires price out millionaires and the effect works right down the system to priced-out first-time buyers, ripped-off private renters and forced-out housing benefit claimants.
Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
No answer
Posted: July 25, 2012 Filed under: Economics, Housebuilding Leave a commentIf the case for a housing stimulus was already unanswerable, today’s confirmation of the depth of the recession makes the lack of one unfathomable.
It’s not just the 0.7 per cent fall in GDP in the second quarter or the 0.3 per cent falls in the two previous quarters or that this is the first double dip recession since the 1930s. It’s not even the fact that the construction industry’s 5.2 per cent fall in output between April and June and 4.9 per cent in the first quarter is one of the major reasons why it happened.
Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Plus points
Posted: July 17, 2012 Filed under: Housebuilding, Private renting Leave a commentThis blog has a tendency to be negative at times so I’ve been trying to accentuate the positive ahead of the announcement on housebuilding expected later this week.
The good news is that the government is definitely taking housing seriously. Peter Schofield, director-general of the DCLG, confessed at the CIH conference last month that the Treasury had barely considered housing when it drew up its original plan for growth last year. In the run-up to the growth plan mark 2 and publication of the Montague report on the private rented sector, I’m told that David Cameron has been making the point that ‘all roads lead back to housing’ while Nick Clegg was using housing to rally his party faithful over the weekend at the Social Liberal Forum.
Read the rest of this post at Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing.
QED
Posted: July 5, 2012 Filed under: Economics, Housebuilding 2 CommentsAs the Bank of England unleashes another £50 billion into the economy is it time at last to use quantitative easing in a way that will boost the economy and tackle the housing crisis at the same time?
I’ve made the case for QE for housing for several months now (see here, here and here) and it’s been made in much more detail by my fellow blogger Brian Green of Brickonomics here, here and here.
In essence, the idea is that the government should set up a not-for-profit public interest company with a remit to fund house building. The Bank of England would use £50 billion of housing QE to buy bonds in the company to fund the construction of homes and associated infrastructure and the bonds would be repaid from the rental and eventual sale of the homes.
Jules Birch 