Tag Archives: housing
UK agents launch 2015 manifesto for sale and rental housing sectors
Estate and lettings agents in the UK have launched their 2015 housing manifesto calling for better supply, enhanced regulation, and a change to property taxes. The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) and Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) launched the manifesto today at the third consecutive NAEA Conference. During the last six months NAEA and ARLA have met professionals, politicians, experts and campaigners across the UK to understand their hopes and fears for the housing sector. The three main concerns which were identified were the lack of supply, a need for more regulation in lettings and sales, and appropriate taxes across the whole property spectrum. ‘Britain is standing today on the precipice of a crisis in the supply of housing. We are simply not building enough homes to meet burgeoning demand from both the sales and private rented sectors,’ said Mark Hayward, managing director, NAEA. ‘We are growing as a society, and our needs for housing have developed from what they may have been previously. But what still rings true is that everyone has a universal right to a home. And our deep-rooted concern is that government policy on housing, as it currently stands, cannot deliver on this requirement,’ he pointed out. He explained that providing housing, or more importantly homes, requires finance, suitable land, time and skill. ‘Policymakers seem to have forgotten this. Housing cannot be a political football for future governments to use to score points against each other. Ultimately we need to take the politics out of housing. We know this is easier said than done. So instead we ask for all future parliamentarians to maintain a long-term progressive view and to deliver on our manifesto commitments,’ he added. David Cox, ARLA managing director, highlighted the need for greater regulation in the private rented sector. ‘Britain currently maintains a two tier private rented market, consisting of those who operate to professional standards and those that do not,’ he said. ‘Consumers often do not know the difference between the two, thus the onus falls on them to be able to tell the difference. Our agents are already regulated and operate to the highest professional standards. They are fully qualified and we offer tenants and landlords client money protection,’ he explained. ‘The certainty we provide should not be the gold standard, but what every consumer should demand from their agent. It is imperative therefore that letting agents be members of a client money protection scheme, and that regulation be tightened for the entire industry,’ he added. ‘Greater regulation for letting agents in particular will ensure fairness, a level playing field and the removal of those agents who bring the industry into disrepute,’ he concluded. Continue reading
Plans for over 400,000 new homes in London announced
The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has set out plans to help London meet its need for over 400,000 homes, including the establishment of a London Land Commission. The new commission, based at the Greater London Authority, will be tasked with identifying public sector brownfield land that is no longer needed in London, to help ensure that all of the capital’s brownfield sites are developed by 2025, and help meet its target of over 400,000 new homes by 2025. The Land Commission’s work will pave the way for hundreds of thousands of new homes in the capital on brownfield and public sector land and the Chancellor and the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, also confirmed the creation of nine new Housing Zones on brownfield land. The Housing Zones will be in Greenwich, Bexley, Barking and Dagenham, Wandsworth, Harrow, Hounslow, Lewisham, Ealing and Haringey and will have access to funding set aside to deliver affordable housing. Osborne explained that the Housing Zones are a new approach being used by the government, to get new homes built quickly and this investment will support and accelerate the construction of up to 30,000 new homes, of which around a third will be affordable homes. ‘We face massive demographic pressures in our city and it is absolutely vital that we build the high quality stock of housing we need to cope. We will not solve the problem without massively expanding the supply of housing and the plans confirmed today will help do that, which is fantastic for our city,’ said Johnson. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said that the measures for London will help regenerate brownfield land, provide more homes and protect the Green Belt around the city. Continue reading
UK housing market sales at their highest since 2007
Residential sales in the UK in the first 10 months of 2014 were 21% higher than in the same period in 2013 with over three quarters of a million property sales recorded, new research shows. This was the highest for this period since 2007 with the numbers of sales in England and Wales during January through to October 2014 totalling 760,000, according to the research by Lloyds Bank. It also shows that there has been a considerable improvement in sales since the market reached the depth of its recession in 2009. Sales in the first 10 months of 2014 were 60% higher than in the same period in 2009. However, sales remained 27% below the levels achieved at the height of the boom in 2007. Daventry in Northamptonshire experienced the biggest rise in home sales, up by 56%, but all regions saw a rise in sales in 2014. The biggest increases compared with 2013 was 26% in the East Midlands, 25% in the West Midlands and 25% in the North West. The smallest rise was 11% in Greater London. However, London recorded the biggest pick-up in sales over the past five years as a whole with a 74% gain between 2009 and 2014. All regions have seen rises of at least 50% over this period with the smallest rises in East Anglia at 51%, the North at 52% and the South West also at 52%. Sales in all regions, however, remain lower than 2007 levels with transactions in the northern regions furthest below. The North is down 41%, the North West down 37%, and Yorkshire and Humber down 35%. The strongest recoveries have been in southern England with the South West down 19%, East Anglia down 20% and the South East down 22%. The overwhelming majority of towns in this survey, some 97%, saw an increase in sales between 2013 and 2014. The majority of regions recorded an increase in all towns. London, however, experienced a decline in sales in a fifth of its boroughs. In contrast, all towns in the country saw a decline in sales in 2008. ‘The recovery in the housing market continued in 2014 with sales rising further in almost all areas of the country. Low interest rates, improvements in the UK economy and government schemes, such as Help to Buy, all appear to have contributed to the rise in home sales. Despite these improvements, sales both nationally and regionally are still significantly below their pre-recession levels,’ said Andy Hulme, mortgages director at Lloyds Bank. ‘There is a clear north versus south pattern to the housing market recovery with sales closer to their 2007 levels in the south. Indeed, a small number of towns recorded higher sales last year than seven years earlier, but sales remained much lower than 2007 levels in most areas,’ he added. A breakdown of the figures shows that four towns recorded a 50% or more increase in sales between 2013 and… Continue reading
