10 things about 2013: part 2
Posted: December 30, 2013 Filed under: Buy to let, Help to Buy, Housebuilding, Housing market, Labour market, Planning, Private renting, Wales | Tags: Budget George Osborne, David Cameron Leave a commentHere’s the second part of my look back at the key themes I’ve been blogging about this year.
6) Help to Buy
If the bedroom tax was the subject I blogged about most in 2013 (see Part 1 of this blog), Help to Buy was certainly the best (or worst) of the rest.
The first hints of the scheme came in January as the coalition published its Mid-Term Review. Perhaps conscious of the gap between rhetoric and reality when it came to the government’s record on housing, David Cameron promised more help for people who cannot raise a deposit for a mortgage, with details to come in the Budget. By March Cameron and Clegg were promising what sounded to me like the coalition’s fourth housing strategy in three years. And in the Budget George Osborne duly announced what I called a huge gamble, loosening the targeting of previous schemes at first-time buyers and new homes and extending the help available much further up the income scale.
Gloomy forecast
Posted: December 10, 2013 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing market, Private renting Leave a commentIt’s the time of year for predictions and the prospects do not look good for anyone struggling to get on to the housing ladder or afford their rent.
The latest Home Truths report from the National Housing Federation predicts that house prices in England will rise by 35 per cent by 2020. However, the bad news does not stop there for the ‘huge swathe of the population locked out of home ownership for life’ because rents will rise by 39 per cent over the same period.
The latest RICS housing market survey, also out this morning, shows that prices again rose sharply while expectations for future growth have risen to their highest level since 1999.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Blaming the planners
Posted: November 11, 2013 Filed under: Housebuilding, Housing market, Mortgages, Planning 1 CommentFix planning and you fix supply, fix supply and you fix the housing crisis. That’s the seductive argument that seems to be gaining ground.
My problem with it is not that it’s wrong. There is a dire shortage of new homes: completions are running at around half what’s needed to meet demand. Problems with the planning system can make supply too slow to respond to demand, constrain growth and make the crisis worse. It would be ridiculous to say otherwise.
It’s more that it’s too simple. It takes a kernel of truth and claims that it is the only truth. In its crudest form the argument is that all we have to do is sweep away ‘socialist’ planning and leave it to the market: in the 1930s there was no planning, private housebuilders were building over 250,000 homes a year and homes were affordable; the post-war Labour government required planning permission for new homes and prices have risen steadily higher ever since because the private sector has been unable to build enough homes.
Help to Buy: Dave’s dream
Posted: November 11, 2013 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing market, Mortgages Leave a commentDavid Cameron’s cheerleading for the successful launch of the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme unwittingly reveals more than he might have intended.
In a statement issued last night, the prime minister said that 2,384 households have put in offers under the controversial scheme and ten have already completed.
The figures come from applications backed by a decision in principle for 95 per cent mortgages by RBS and Lloyds, the semi-state owned banks. The average advance is £155,000 on homes worth £163,000, which Cameron said demonstrated that Help to Buy is supporting responsible lending.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Help to Rent
Posted: November 6, 2013 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing benefit, Housing market, Private renting Leave a commentFor all today’s headlines about house prices, the most significant claim in new forecasts out today is that private renting will grow by another million households in the next five years.
That is one of the new forecasts for the housing market issued by Savills today and flows from its assumptions on what will happen to house prices. It comes despite the government’s flagship Help to Buy policy that aims to create more owners.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Housing crisis? What housing crisis?
Posted: October 24, 2013 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing market, Private renting 7 CommentsThe housing minister for England gave his first TV interview yesterday. I think it would be fair to say it did not go too well.
A week ago Kris Hopkins was ‘not available’ to appear on Channel 4 News to debate homelessness and house prices. This week the news peg was a 40 per cent increase in mortgage approvals and a 10 per cent increase in asking prices in London in a single month. He was interviewed as part of a package that asked ‘Is the housing market overheating?’
Interviewer Jon Snow presented him with four ‘key stats’ on completions (up slightly but still down by a third on the pre-crisis peak), house prices (up 5 per cent in a year), foreign home buyers (responsible for half of sales over £1 million in London) and the gap between prices in the north and south (up from £66,000 to £103,000 in the last year).
Here’s how it went with a few comments from me along the way.
Who buys it?
Posted: October 8, 2013 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housing market, Mortgages Leave a commentIt’s under attack from all sides but the strongest arguments for Help to Buy 2 are the ones that ministers cannot mention.
No matter how much David Cameron, George Osborne and the new junior housing minister go on about aspiration and opportunity, the critics refuse to go away. In just the latest example, the all-party Treasury select committeescorns government assurances to repeat its earlier warning that the controversial scheme will boost house prices and be politically impossible for future administrations to exit.
Here’s my analysis of the stated – and unstated – arguments made by ministers:
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Silly season
Posted: September 13, 2013 Filed under: Economics, Housing market, Mortgages Leave a commentSilly? Naïve? Bonkers? Proposals by the RICS for managing house price inflation are getting about as warm a welcome in the property industry as the UN got at Conservative HQ.
Some of the reactions are just as self-interested too since an end to house price volatility would be good news for people who want to buy but very bad news for some of those queuing up to say the whole idea is crazy. While some critics point with good reason to the practical difficulties of implementing the idea, others seem personally offended by the very idea of putting a stop to the house price gravy train.
Read the rest of this post on Inside Edge, my blog for Inside Housing
Asking for more on new homes
Posted: September 12, 2013 Filed under: Help to Buy, Housebuilding 4 Comments‘We will build more,’ the major housebuilders are promising housing minister Mark Prisk. And they will – but strictly on their own terms.
Final results from Barratt published this week show that its completions rose by 6.3 per cent to 13,663 in the year to the end of June. The fact that the country’s biggest housebuilder is building more homes has to be good news. Even better, it is planning 45,000 over the next three years and it believes 16,000 completions are achievable in the year to June 2016.
But forget any notion that there has been any change in the strategy it and the other major housebuilders have followed since the credit crunch of managing their land carefully, minimising costs and maximising margins. That 6 per cent increase in completions was matched by increases of 30 per cent in operating profits and 74 per cent in pre-tax profits before exceptional items. Shareholders will also benefit as the company pays a dividend for the first time since 2008.
Jules Birch 