Posts with tag: housing crisis

Scotland Commits to Delivering at least 50,000 Affordable Homes in this Parliament

Published On: September 6, 2017 at 9:12 am

Tags: affordable homes,housebuilding,housing crisis,Scotland

In its Programme for Scotland 2017-18, the Scottish government has committed to delivering at least 50,000 affordable homes over the lifetime of the current Parliament.

Scotland Commits to Delivering at least 50,000 Affordable Homes in this Parliament

The document insists that 35,000 of these homes will be for social rent. More than £1.75 billion is being allocated to councils over the next three years, to help deliver the government’s ambitious target.

In this financial year, the Scottish government is also committing over £590m to increase the supply of affordable homes across Scotland, through its pledges to local authorities and demand-led national schemes, such as the Open Market Shared Equity scheme and the Rural and Islands Housing Fund.

A budget increase of over £100m in 2016-17 has led to more than 10,000 new housing units being approved in the first year of the target period – a record-breaking level, notes the report.

The Scottish government will also support up to 3,500 households this financial year into affordable homeownership, including approximately 2,500 first time buyers, with assistance from its Help to Buy and other shared equity schemes. The total investment for these schemes in this financial year is £135m.

Scotland’s Rental Income Guarantee Scheme, which will launch this year, seeks to attract new institutional investment to the country, by sharing a limited proportion of the letting risk with participating members. Potential investment in the emerging Build to Rent sector in Scotland is estimated to be in the region of £500m over the next five years, which will support 2,500 new homes.

The government adds that the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership has brought over 2,400 homes back into use to date. It pledged to double its funding, helping local authorities to provide and sustain empty homes officer support in every part of Scotland.

Regarding the ways in which Scotland delivers homes, the government vowed to support the increased delivery of self-build and custom-build homes, and expand the options available and provide more flexibility for both individual homeowners and the construction industry. This will include Simplified Planning Zones for housing, in recognition of the significant opportunities for the self-build and custom-build sectors.

For more details of the Scottish government’s plans surrounding reform of the planning system, homelessness, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax, high-rise housing following the Grenfell Tower fire, and energy efficiency in the private rental sector, click here: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/09/8468/10

Responding to the plans, the Strategic Development Manager for Propertymark Scotland, Daryl Mcintosh, says: “We welcome the Scottish government’s commitment to increasing housing stock in Scotland; improving the quality and supply of affordable homes remains a key factor which impacts so many people across the country.

“In principle, we support introducing energy efficiency standards for the private rented sector, however, we caution the government to make sure it doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach, as those with rural homes in particular may struggle to meet minimum standards.”

L&G Reveals Turn-Key Modular Housing Prototype to Tackle Crisis

Published On: July 11, 2017 at 8:20 am

Author: Em Morley

Categories: Property News

Tags: housebuilding,housing crisis,modular housing,property development

Legal & General (L&G) has revealed its first turn-key modular housing prototype, as it continues to drive the evolution of the housing sector to help tackle the country’s long-term chronic housebuilding crisis.

L&G Reveals Turn-Key Modular Housing Prototype to Tackle Crisis

Located outside its 550,000 square foot factory in Selby, near Leeds, the prototype is a two-storey, two-bedroom home. Exploring a range of designs, L&G expects to deliver its first modular homes in the first half of next year.

The Leeds site is building the capacity to produce thousands of homes per year across eight production lines, employing hundreds of local people.

Modular housing is quicker and more efficient than traditional housebuilding, delivering homes in a matter of weeks, rather than years, to a consistently high standard. This is achieved by building precision-engineered homes in a factory environment, ensuring accuracy of build in dry controlled conditions, using state of the art methods and materials.

The manufacturing process is highly energy efficient and will be carried out by a stable trained workforce. Constructing the homes from Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) delivers further environmental benefits, by storing one tonne of CO₂ in every m³of CLT used in the construction of each home. This ensures an economically viable and sustainable solution to deliver much needed capacity for the industry.

The CEO of L&G Modular, Rosie Toogood, comments on the firm’s modular housing prototype: “The unveiling our first prototype today marks an exciting and important step in our programme to bring modular homes constructed from CLT to market. This prototype demonstrates the high quality of our modular solutions, debunking preconceptions of modular housing. At full production, homes like this will be delivered repeatedly in a matter of weeks without the snagging issues faced by traditional methods.

“L&G has a long heritage in providing housing in the UK, and sees modular construction as a natural evolution and extension of its position in this market. Modular construction is set to revolutionise the housebuilding sector, bringing new materials, along with methods and processes used in industries such as car-making, to raise productivity and help to address the UK’s chronic shortfall of new homes.”

L&G has been involved in housing activities for almost 20 years, including its new, institutional Build to Rent schemes.

Do you support the use of modular housing to help tackle the housebuilding crisis?

New Government-Funded Social Housing Drops by 97% under the Conservatives

Published On: June 28, 2017 at 8:15 am

Author: Em Morley

Categories: Property News

Tags: housebuilding,housing crisis,social housing,socially rented homes

The number of new, Government-funded social housing has dropped by 97% since the Conservatives took office in 2010, according to official statistics.

More than 36,700 new homes were built for social rent with Government money in 2010-11 – the year that the Conservatives came to power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. By the 2016-17 financial year that finished in April, that figure had plummeted to just 1,102.

In the same period, the total number of affordable homes built with Government funds more than halved – from 55,909 to 27,792.

The new data arrives as experts warn of a huge loss of social housing as a result of current Government policies. The number of social housing has already fallen drastically in recent years – 120,000 were lost between 2012 and 2016 alone, with many converted into affordable homes marketed at higher rents.

Instead of social housing that is typically available to vulnerable families at around 50% of the market rent, the Government has prioritised the building of affordable homes for which rents can be charged at up to 80% of the market value. Critics believe that, in many areas of the country, these rents are not genuinely affordable for people on low and middle incomes.

New Government-Funded Social Housing Drops by 97% under the Conservatives

The Conservatives were forced to do a U-turn during the General Election campaign, after Theresa May announced that the party would deliver “a constant supply of new homes for social rent”. The Government was later forced to admit that the new homes would, in fact, be the significantly more expensive affordable homes.

The drop in social housebuilding is likely to put further pressure on Theresa May and her Government in the wake of the catastrophic Grenfell Tower fire in North Kensington, which raised fresh questions about the Government’s record on social housing.

Critics have claimed that the tower was built to a poor standard and pointed to the fire as a sign that the Conservatives have displayed a disregard for social housing, both locally and nationally.

Analysis by The Independent shows that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where Grenfell Tower is located, has built just ten new council-funded social homes since 1990.

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has warned that the current decline in the number of social homes is set to continue and predicted that, by 2020, almost 250,000 social homes will have been lost in just eight years.

Hundreds of thousands of affordable homes have been sold to private owners through the Right to Buy scheme – a process that will be significantly accelerated by the Housing and Planning Act, passed by the Government last year. The legislation extended the Right to Buy scheme, which previously applied only to council-owned properties, to homes owned by housing associations, meaning a further 800,000 properties will now be eligible to be sold off.

Ministers have consistently promised that every home sold under the scheme will be replaced on a one-for-one basis but, currently, just one new home is being built for every eight sold.

The Government has also ordered local councils to sell off their most valuable social homes to help fund the extension of Right to Buy. Many are expected to end up in the hands of buy-to-let landlords and private investors. The Local Government Association predicts that around 90,000 council homes will be privatised by 2020 as a result of the policy and the continuation of Right to Buy.

Forcing councils to sell their most lucrative properties means that the social homes that remain are likely to be of worse quality and in poorer areas, including tower blocks like Grenfell Tower. Conservative ministers have rejected calls to ensure that homes sold off are replaced on a like-for-like basis, meaning that social housing auctioned off to private buyers is likely to be replaced with far more expensive homes at so-called affordable rents.

At the same time as hundreds of thousands of social homes have been lost, local councils have almost completely stopped building new homes. Just 1,890 were completed by the 353 councils in England in 2015-16 – an average of just five per council. Figures suggest that the trend is getting worse; only 60 of the new homes that councils started building last year were social homes.

As a result, the UK has become increasingly reliant on private property developers and housing associations to build the homes that the country urgently needs. A large proportion of these homes, however, are marketed at full market rents or slightly reduced affordable rents – much more expensive than the social rents that have traditionally been applied to council-owned properties.

Labour’s Shadow Housing Minister, John Healey, says the new figures are “disastrous” for the Government.

““These disastrous figures show the Conservative ministers have washed their hands of any responsibility to build the homes families on low and middle incomes need,” he insists. “The number of Government-funded social rented homes built has plummeted by 97% since 2010.”

He adds: “After seven years of failure, the Conservatives have no plan to fix the housing crisis. A Labour government would invest in the affordable homes that the country needs.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government also responds to the revelation: “Making housing more affordable is an absolute priority for this Government. That is why we have committed £25 billion to get more homes built.

“These statistics demonstrate a step change in the delivery of affordable housing in this country. Through a wide range of affordable products, from affordable rent to shared ownership, we are helping thousands of people to buy or rent a home that is right for them.”

Furthermore, Seb Klier, the Policy and Campaigns Manager at tenant lobby group Generation Rent, reacts: “In the midst of a housing crisis, the failure to properly invest in genuinely affordable, socially rented homes is nothing short of a scandal. We need a mass programme of social housebuilding, not just to support those on low incomes and in immediate housing need, but to take pressure off of the private rented sector, where rents have been driven up by high demand and where millions of private renters now live in poverty.

“Younger renters and potential first time buyers would also benefit from a guaranteed, state-backed supply of new housing, which would help to meet the numbers of homes we need to build and bring down house prices in the process.”

Government Should Use Queen’s Speech to Radicalise Housing, Urges ARLA and NAEA

Published On: June 20, 2017 at 8:21 am

Author: Em Morley

Categories: Property News

Tags: government,housing crisis,housing minister,property market,Queen's Speech

Government Should Use Queen’s Speech to Radicalise Housing, Urges ARLA and NAEA

The Government should use this week’s Queen’s Speech to radicalise the Housing Bill, urges the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA Propertymark) and the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA Propertymark).

Responding to the appointment of Alok Sharma as the new Housing Minister, the Chief Executives of both organisations, David Cox and Mark Hayward respectively, called on the Government to take the Queen’s Speech as an opportunity to radicalise housing policy.

The delayed Queen’s Speech is due to take place on Wednesday 21^st June 2017, following this month’s General Election.

Cox and Hayward react to Sharma’s new position: “We would like to congratulate Alok Sharma on his appointment to Minister of State for Housing and Planning. We worked closely with the former administration to secure a number of key improvements to the industry, including for greater property transparency and more appropriate regulation through the introduction of Client Money Protection for letting agents.

“However, more can be done and the minister will have a lot in his in-tray as he arrives on his first day, as long-standing issues continue to impact the sector. We call on the minister to build upon the underwhelming recommendations contained within the Housing White Paper and take forward a series of fundamental reforms to change the industry for the better. Demand continues to greatly outstrip supply and more appropriate regulation of the sector is vital if we are to improve the experience of people looking to rent and purchase a home.”

The statement continues: “The Government has a good opportunity at the Queen’s Speech to introduce a new and radical Housing Bill to address these significant concerns. The challenges are not insurmountable and we greatly look forward to working with the DCLG [Department for Communities and Local Government] team to find solutions to these challenges in the months ahead.”

We Don’t Need to Sacrifice Quality for Quantity, Insists LendInvest

Published On: June 8, 2017 at 8:14 am

Author: Em Morley

Categories: Property News

Tags: construction industry,general election,housebuilding,housing crisis,property market

By Ian Thomas, Co-Founder and CIO, LendInvest

There have been some positive signs of late that housebuilding in the UK is turning the corner. For example, last month, the National House Building Council announced that registrations – where builders make a payment for insurance on projects which haven’t yet started – have hit the highest figure seen in ten years.

But in the rush to ramp up the number of homes being built, there is little doubt that some corners are being cut. We have had major housebuilders admit to handing over cash incentives to encourage new homebuyers to complete on homes that haven’t actually finished yet, paying compensation for unacceptable flaws with new homes or announcing that they will slow down the rate of building in order to try to improve the quality of the homes being produced.

According to a recent study by Shelter, more than half of buyers of new build properties had experienced major problems after the purchase had gone through, from construction issues to unfinished fittings and flaws with utilities. That’s just not good enough.

When the Government described the housing market as broken in its Housing White Paper this year, most took them to be talking about the market as a whole – not the actual properties being built.

We are leaning too much on the big builders

We Don’t Need to Sacrifice Quality for Quantity, Insists LendInvest

It’s no secret that housebuilding has lagged significantly behind demand for a long time. A report from the House of Lords last year suggested that around 330,000 new homes need to be built each year in order to make a difference to rapid house price growth, yet last year the nation could only manage 170,000. And that was a good year by recent standards.

The problem is that we still look to the housebuilding giants, who have dominated the market over the last couple of decades, to do more. But this pressure to increase production is leading to mistakes being made and shortcuts being taken.

It may be that these large builders are simply at their maximum building capacity – if we are to improve the rate of housing production, we need to see homes being produced by a much wider range of sources.

That means doing far more to boost the small and medium-sized builders who are desperate to build homes but face a host of serious barriers, which is holding them back.

Helping the small builder

It’s not that long ago that the small builder played a far more serious role in the housebuilding market in the UK. Before 1990, they were responsible for three in every eight new homes. Today, that number has plummeted to a paltry one in eight, while 80% of small firms have gone out of business since the last housebuilding boom.

Small builders are being pushed out, denied access to public land for development and denied tax breaks open to other small businesses. This cannot carry on – we need to level the playing field, remove these barriers and give small builders the push they need.

Helping small developers build the skillset they need to make a success of their projects is hugely important, and it’s something LendInvest has tried to address with our series of Property Development Academies. That demand has been so strong – and from across the country, to the point that we are now holding them in Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Edinburgh – is an encouraging sign that while small builders have faced unfair hurdles for too long, the desire to clear them and get on with building homes is still there.

If small builders have the appropriate skills, the proper funding, and the access to quality land on which to build, then there can be no doubt that they can play a huge role in addressing the housing shortage.

The time for talk is over

With the General Election upon us, all of the major parties have been very open in acknowledging that the current housing problems cannot be allowed to continue. But the time for talk has long since passed, so, come June 9^th, whoever it is that takes up residency in Downing Street needs to push for tangible, meaningful action.

We have a whole generation of would-be developers, who want to help produce quality homes. But they need some help getting there, and it is up to us as an industry to continue to champion them and make their case. If some of those barriers can be removed, we will quickly see the SME builders begin to flourish, and the rate of housebuilding increase.

It doesn’t have to be a question of quality or quantity. By standing up for the little guy, we can have both.

If you’re still unsure of who to vote for, read through what each of the main political parties is pledging on housing: https://www.justlandlords.co.uk/news/main-political-parties-pledges-housing/

First Time Buyers Increasingly Relying on the Bank of Mum and Dad

Published On: March 29, 2017 at 8:31 am

Author: Em Morley

Categories: Finance News

Tags: bank of mum and dad,first time buyers,homeownership,housing crisis

A record number of first time buyers are relying on the bank of mum and dad to buy their own homes, according to a new report from the Social Mobility Commission.

First Time Buyers Increasingly Relying on the Bank of Mum and Dad

The study found that 34% of first time buyers use loans or gifts from family members to fund their purchases, up from 20% seven years ago.

The findings arrive as researchers from the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University found that homeownership among 25-29-year-olds has dropped by more than half in the last 25 years, from 63% in 1990 to 31%.

The Rt Hon Alan Milburn, the Chair of the Social Mobility Commission, says: “The way the housing market is operating is exacerbating inequality and impeding social mobility.

“Owning a home is becoming a distant dream for millions of young people on low incomes who do not have the luxury of relying on the bank of mum and dad to give them a foot up on the housing ladder.”

The researchers expect the number of first time buyers to climb slightly in the short-term, before declining gradually over the next 25 years.

The report also shows that first time buyers who receive money from the bank of mum and dad can become homeowners 2.6 years earlier than those who fund their purchases themselves. In London, this rises to 4.6 years.

One in ten existing homeowners also use loans and gifts from family members to buy new homes, while another 9.6% use inheritance to fund a purchase.

Last year, Legal & General said that the bank of mum and dad was lending £5 billion a year to help their children onto the property ladder, lending an average of £17,500. The amount lent every year puts it in the top ten of mortgage lenders.

The Social Mobility Commission, which is an advisory public body, has urged the Government to build three million homes over the next decade – a million of which should be constructed by the public sector. It added that to hit these targets, homes should be built on the greenbelt.

Another recent study found that young people believe they can only afford to buy their own home if they have a partner: /young-people-impossible-buy-alone/