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Billions to be invested in homes for sale and rent in Ireland
Some €200 million it to be put into an Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund in Ireland aimed at opening up large sites in areas where people need homes. This is to relieve critical infrastructural blockages to allow for the delivery of homes on key sites and to improve the economic viability and purchaser affordability of new housing projects and deliver 20,000 new homes by 2020. The Irish Government has also announced under its Housing Action Plan that €5.35 billion will be allocated to the development of social housing with the aim of building 47,000 more social housing units by 2021. There will also be changes to planning to allow large scale residential development planning applications to be fast tracked. The Government said it will legislate to allow for larger housing development applications of 100 plus units to be made directly to An Bord Pleanala, the country’s independent planning body. An Bord Pleanala is also set to prioritise the determination of all planning appeals for large scale developments. This is to be done within an 18 to 20 week period and the roll-out of e-planning is also being looked at. The action plan also includes increasing the supply of home to rent and support for a stable rental sector. A national policy for appropriate on and off-campus accommodation for students will also be developed. The Housing Agency will be allocated €70 million to acquire suitable portfolios of vacant properties to be let under a national vacant housing reuse strategy. A register of vacant properties across the country will be drawn up and the planning rules for change of use of vacant commercial units to a residential units will be reviewed. However, according to the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) critical skills shortages across all sectors of the housing market in Ireland will urgently need to be addressed to deliver the scale of housing delivery needed. Claire Solon, SCSI president, said that a National body with real authority and mandate is needed not just for housing, but also for national infrastructural planning. ‘It’s clear from the Action Plan that in several areas, it’s the need for projects like road completions, or water and drainage schemes that are actually preventing the delivery of housing,’ she pointed out. ‘The industry has shown itself be to resourceful following many difficult years, but there needs to be significant investment now to address the skills shortage in all sectors, professional, technical and trades,’ she explained. ‘We will be asking the Minister of Finance to specifically resource our sector in the upcoming Budget for training of apprentices, graduates and to help encourage workers from other sectors to transfer to construction and property roles. The industry plays a vital role in our economy and after many years of underinvestment, negative reporting and poor output, it needs radical intervention to upscale and deliver what could be one of the most important development stages in the history of our country,’ she added. The SCSI also believes… Continue reading
Number of first time buyers in UK up by 10% in first half of 2016
The number of first time buyers in the UK increased by an estimated 10% in the first six months of 2016 compared with the same period in 2015, according to new research. Overall there were an estimated 154,200 first time buyers in the first half of 2016 compared with 140,500 in the same period last year, the data from the Halifax first time buyer review shows, more than double the market low in the first half of 2009. For the same six month period since 2012, the number entering the housing market has exceeded 100,000. However the number of first time buyer in the first half of 2016 was nearly a fifth lower, 36,700, than at the peak of the last boom in 2006. The report also shows that the number of first time buyers has increased more rapidly than the number of home movers over the past few years as a whole. As a result first time buyers have increased as a proportion of all mortgage financed house purchasers from 38% in 2011 to an estimated 47% in 2016. However, the percentage has been stable over the past three years as the numbers of first time buyers and home movers have risen at a similar pace since 2014. The average first time buyer deposit in May 2016 was £33,960, more than double that in 2007 when it was £16,400 and the report points out that there has been a 14% rise in the deposit over the past year largely reflecting the increase in house prices over that period. The 10 least affordable Local Authority Districts (LADs) for first time buyers are all in London. The least affordable is Brent where the average first time buyer property price of £457,014 is 12.5 times gross average annual earnings in the area. East Dunbartonshire in Scotland is the most affordable LAD in the UK with an average property price of £97,089, some 2.6 times local annual average gross earnings. Copeland in the North West is the next most affordable and five of the 10 most affordable LADs for first time buyers are in Scotland. ‘There was a further increase in the number of first time buyers in the first half of the year with the total exceeding 100,000 in the first six months of each year since 2012. This rise has been broadly in line with a general improvement in market activity and is likely to have been helped by government measures including the Help to Buy scheme,’ said Chris Gowland, mortgages director at the Halifax. ‘Although numbers remain below their previous peaks and many potential first time buyers are facing escalating house prices and deposit sizes, record low mortgage rates continue to make buying seem a more attractive option than renting,’ he added. The research also shows that the average price paid by first time buyers increased by 12% over the past year from £178,399 to £199,414. Regionally, the average price paid by first time… Continue reading
Affordability for home buyers in Australia eases in second quarter of 2016
Affordability for home buyers in Australia eased back in second quarter of 2016 as price growth returned to the residential real estate market. Overall affordability fell by 3.7% and was 2.1% less than the same quarter of 2015, according to the latest report from the Housing Industry Association, the voice of Australia’s residential building industry. The capital city housing affordability index fell by 4.3% during the quarter, while the regional market index experienced a 1.9% improvement. ‘Home price growth moderated in the early part of the year and the index showed an improvement in affordability during the March 2016 quarter. However, in the June quarter dwelling price growth returned and the index reverted to the level we saw at the end of 2015,’ said Geordan Murray, HIA economist. ‘While there was a decline in the headline index tracking the national picture, there was substantial variation around the country with substantial differences between states, and also differences between capital city markets and regional markets,’ he pointed out. He explained that the geographic variation in affordability is most evident in the comparison between Melbourne and Perth. Over the last year, the median dwelling price in Perth has fallen by 4.7% while Melbourne’s has grown by 11.5%. This has seen the affordability index for Perth increase by 6.2% over the last year, while the index for Melbourne has fallen by 6.2%. ‘These differences in affordability align with the relative economic performance of these two states. The Western Australian economy is navigating the tail end of the mining boom which has seen conditions in the local labour market deteriorate and consequently the rate of population growth has fallen quite sharply,’ Murray said. ‘In contrast, Victoria has experienced a healthy level of growth in the labour force and continues to record the strongest rate of population growth in the country,’ he added. A breakdown of the figures show that during the June 2016 quarter, improvements in affordability were observed in three capital cities with the largest improvement in Perth with growth of 3.2%, Darwin up 2.9% and Hobart up 2.2%. Affordability worsened in the remaining five capital cities with the largest decline recorded in Melbourne with a decline of 7.4%, followed by Canberra down 5.7%, Sydney down 1.6%, Adelaide down 1.3% and Brisbane down 1%. Continue reading
