HOUSING POLITICS
Two years later
What has the coalition government done for us? Is there a cohesive housing policy? Andrea Kirkby asked those in the know.
E
veryone realises we have a major housing problem. From charities and pressure groups to developers and estate agents, everyone is
agreed; a stagnant market, with first time buyers priced out, rental levels too high for many families, insufficient social housing and declining home ownership, just isn’t the way things are meant to be. It isn’t a new problem. We’ve seen a
decade of different policies and schemes under both Labour and Conservative governments, First Time Buyers’ Initiative, Own Home, Social Home Buy, Open Market Homebuy, FirstBuy, Kickstart, and now NewBuy, and yet first time buyers have declined from 600,000 in 1999, to just 200,000 last year. With median house prices at 7 times earnings, against 3.5 times in the mid 1990s, affording a home would be a stretch anyway; and now, there’s the impact of the credit crunch to be considered too, with many lenders unwilling to advance more than 60 or 70 per cent loan to value. Jennet Siebrits, Head of Residential
Research at CBRE, says rising prices stem from the fact we simply aren’t building enough houses. Housing supply is fundamentally constrained,” she asserts, “and rates of building need to double to be sustainable and meet growing population needs. An increased focus on housebuilding is essential if we are to tackle the cumulative shortfall of more than half a million homes over the last five years.” Tracy Kellett, of BDI Home Finders, sums it up more succinctly, “We all know that there is a lack of stock and a growing population. That causes all sorts of problems.” But she thinks things are getting worse,
not better. House prices are still artificially high, despite concerns over the euro, increasing mortgage rates, and the likelihood of more repossessions next year when financially stressed homeowners’ fixes run out and they can’t remortgage, or they need to come off interest-only mortgages. She may be a buyers’ agent, but she herself sold in September 2011 and is now renting.
8 MAY 2012 PROPERTYdrum
JUNE 2010 £4.95
www.propertydrum.com
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GL.indd 1 20/5/10 10:58:57
A stagnant market, first time buyers priced out, rents that are too high, insufficient social housing and declining ownership.’
JUNE 2010
www.propertydrum.com
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