Right To Buy Sales Plunge 43% To Eight-Year Low

Local authorities in England sold 1,548 homes under the Right to Buy between July and September 2020, down from 2,727 in the same quarter in 2019. A government data release said the sharp decline “may be due in large part to the lockdown restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic”. Home moves and sales were frozen for nearly two months last spring, but the figures published today represent a continued slowdown of sales despite the market being reopened from July. Between April and June, when the freeze came in, there were 1,549 sales in total – one more than in the following three-month period. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/right-to-buy-sales-plunge-43-to-eight-year-low-69249#:~:text=Right%20to%20Buy%20sales%20fell,the%20lowest%20level%20since%202013.&text=Local%20authorities%20in%20England%20sold,the%20same%20quarter%20in%202019.

Construction Output Expected To Plummet By 25% In 2020

Total construction output in the UK is anticipated to plummet by 25% during 2020, according to the Construction Products Association (CPA). The projected decline in construction output is one of three scenarios examined by the CPA. Even under the most optimistic of scenarios, the country’s construction activity would suffer its sharpest fall ever recorded. The temporary halt of construction work as a result of Covid-19 social distancing measures is the main source of the drop, with 60% of planned construction output lost in April due to the measures. Read more on the PBC Today website.

https://www.pbctoday.co.uk/news/planning-construction-news/construction-output-2020/76674/

Construction Figures “Disappointing”

New figures from the Office for National Statistics show that construction output dropped by 1.7 per cent in February this year, the largest fall in monthly growth since October 2019. The ONS says that this may be because of the weather in February, which was the wettest seen since records began in 1862. Poor figures were seen in private housing new work, too, which fell 7.7 per cent on January’s figures, which is the second-largest fall in monthly growth in a decade – with only January 2018 being worse, at 8 per cent. Read more on the Mortgage Strategy website.

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/news/pre-coronavirus-construction-figures-disappointing/

Construction Activity Fall Quickest Since 2009

Construction activity has declined at the fastest rate in more than a decade since the coronavirus pandemic began. Public health measures to halt the spread of covid-19 have led to stoppages of work on site and a slump in new orders. While residential activity dropped at a comparatively modest pace in March, construction companies said they were expecting a slump in house building from stoppages on site. Read more on Housing Today.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/construction-activity-fall-quickest-since-2009/5105422.article

Landlords Urge The Chancellor To Take Action On Decline Of Rental Housing Supply

The Chancellor must use his first Budget to take immediate action to reverse the decline in the supply of rented housing, say landlords. With landlords selling more properties than they are buying and others switching to short-term holiday lets for tax reasons unless action is taken tenants are going to find it increasingly hard to find the home they want. The three per cent stamp duty levy on extra housing introduced in 2016, among other measures, has slowed investment in newly rented property, with landlord confidence now extremely low. Read more on the Property Reporter website.

https://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/landlords/landlords-urge-the-chancellor-to-take-action-on-decline-of-rental-housing-supply.html

Pre-Tax Surplus Drops 11% Among Associations

Britain’s largest housing associations (HAs) saw a significant decrease in their pre-tax surplus during the 2018 financial year. Social Housing has analysed the sector’s 2017/18 global accounts, which are published by the regulators in England, Scotland and Wales. Our analysis has shown that total surplus for the year before tax was down 10.8 per cent to £3.96bn. This figure was driven by drops in pre-tax surplus across all three countries. Read more on the Social Housing website.

https://www.socialhousing.co.uk/insight/special-report-pre-tax-surplus-drops-11-among-british-associations-62511?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

UK House Prices Unexpectedly Fall In July

British house prices unexpectedly dropped for a second month in a row in July, figures from mortgage lender Halifax show, adding to signs that households are growing warier of making major financial decisions ahead of Brexit. Halifax said house prices fell 0.2% on the month, compared with economists’ forecasts in a Reuters poll for a 0.3% rise, while the annual growth rate for the three months to July dropped to 4.1% from 5.7%, also a sharper decline than expected. Read more on the Reuters website.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-houseprices/uk-house-prices-unexpectedly-fall-in-july-halifax-idUKKCN1UX0Q3

Brexit Jitters Hit London Housing Market As Newbuilds Decline Sharply

Housebuilding declined sharply in London and the Midlands last year as political and economic uncertainty around the shape of Brexit hit the housing market, according to industry figures. The number of new homes in London registered by housebuilders with the National House Building Council (NHBC) in 2018 fell 10% from the previous year to 16,069, the biggest annual drop since 2016. In the east Midlands and West Midlands, registrations were also down 10%, to 13,447 and 13,087 respectively following two strong years. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/07/brexit-jitters-hit-housing-market-as-newbuilds-decline-sharply

Families In Rural Areas Are Spending Nearly A Third Of Their Income On Rent

Families in rural areas are spending nearly a third of their income on rent, research by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has revealed. In a report to mark Rural Housing Week the IPPR found there is an affordability “crisis” in rural areas where the average house price is £320,700, more than £87,000 higher than the urban average outside of London. The IPPR analysis also found the population in rural areas is set to age rapidly over the next two decades. Between 2014 and 2038, the working-age population in rural areas is projected to decline by 75,000 people while the population aged over 65 will grow by around 1.5 million. Read more on the IPPR website.

https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/a-new-rural-settlement

The Decline Of Homeownership Among Young Adults

The decline in the homeownership rate of young adults in Great Britain is an issue that has risen to the top of the political agenda. In a briefing note, the Institute for Fiscal Studies finds;

·         young adults are significantly less likely to own a home at a given age than those born five or ten years earlier

·         falls in homeownership have been sharpest for young adults with middle incomes.

·         key reason for the decline is the sharp rise in house prices relative to incomes

·         Young adults from more disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to own their home

Download the briefing note from the IFS website.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/bns/BN224.pdf

Alarming Decline in Homes for Rent

The UK property rental market has seen a worrying slump of 11.6% in available stock over the last six years. Scotland has seen the most dramatic fall, with a 34.7% decrease in available properties to rent between July 2011 and June 2017. In Wales over the same period there has been a fall of 28.1% while the South West has seen a decline of 26.5%.In total, seven out of 11 UK regions saw a fall in excess of the UK-wide average. This includes a decrease of 24.6% in the East Midlands, a fall of 20.8% in the South East and a drop of 16.7% in the West Midlands. The supply of available stock in East Anglia has dropped by 11.9% since 2011. Read more on the Housingnet website.

Home Buying Activity Declines In January

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, lending in January:

·         Home buyers borrowed £8.4bn in January, down 28% on December and unchanged on January 2016. This came to 45,700 loans, down 28% on December and 1% on January 2016.

·         First-time buyers borrowed £3.6bn for home-owner house purchase, down 29% on December but up 9% on January 2016. They took out 22,600 loans, down 29% month-on-month but up 7% year-on-year. 

·         Home movers borrowed £4.9bn, down 25% on December and 4% year-on-year. This equated to 23,000 loans, down 27% month-on-month and 7% compared to January 2016.  

·         Gross buy-to-let saw month-on-month increases, up 11% by value and 12% by volume. Compared to January 2016,  both the number of loans and the amount borrowed decreased by 16%.    

Read more on the CML website.

Government Review Warns Of 'Inexorable Decline' In Construction

The British construction industry faces “inexorable decline” unless radical action is taken to modernise it, a government review has found. The Farmer Review of the UK Construction Labour Model, commissioned jointly by the CLG and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, has published a damning verdict on the sector. Its most radical proposal for change was the introduction of a ‘levy’ on schemes, which charges additional tax of up to 0.5% of the scheme’s value if it does not support innovation or training. The report slammed the construction sector’s “dysfunctional training model, and its lack of innovation and collaboration, as well as its non-existent research and development culture”. Download the report from the CLG website.

Five Facts About……….Housing

The steady rise in the cost of buying a home shows no sign of abating, as ONS figures reveal that average house prices have risen by 8.7% in the year to June 2016. But house prices are just one part of the story; here are five facts about housing in the UK, from renting to the number of homes being built.

1 The average UK house price was £214,000 in June 2016, £24,000 above its pre-economic downturn peak of £190,000 in September 2007.

2 The percentage of young adult householders owning their home decreased

3 All the countries that constitute Great Britain have experienced rises in their private rental prices since 2011.

4 In both 1995 and 2015 the cheapest small area in England and Wales to buy a property was in Lancashire

5 The overall level of house building in the UK has declined since 1980

For more details go to the ONS website.

Labour Calls For Councils To Help First-Time Buyers

Councils should offer cheap, local-authority backed mortgages to help first-time buyers and bring in rent regulations, according to the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. In a speech at Labour’s state of the economy conference, he said the party wants to address the “freefall decline in home ownership among young people”, pointing to a number of Labour councils that are underwriting mortgages or lending money directly. The idea of councils offering loans for property goes further than George Osborne’s Help to Buy scheme, which guarantees part of a mortgage to enable people to buy with smaller deposits. Read more on the Guardian website.

Slump In New Public Housing Threatens Chancellor's Targets

A sharp decline in new home building by housing associations and local authorities this year could wreck the government’s plans to build 1m new homes by 2020. Housebuilding by the public sector slumped in October, according to official figures, adding to a series of month-on-month falls going back to the election that undermine minister’s claims of a revolution in house building. George Osborne told MPs in his autumn statement last month that measures to support housebuilding would add 400,000 affordable homes by 2020. His comments followed a claim by housing minister Brandon Lewis that a successful housing policy would result “in a total of something like a million homes” by the end of the parliament. Read more on the Guardian website.

Why Thatcher's Home Ownership Dream Has Not Held Up

Three decades since Margaret Thatcher championed her vision of a society where three out of four families would own their own home, a report suggests private landlords have become more powerful than ever before. In 1985, 61pc of UK households were occupied by home owners. Thirty years on, that figure is the same at 61pc. Despite a surge in home ownership in the 1990s, the proportion of people owning their own properties has steadily declined since 2000. At the same time, the rental market has been turned on its head. The proportion of households renting from private landlords has doubled in thirty years. In 1985, 30pc of households rented from public landlords, and 9pc from private landlords. In 2015, 22pc of British adults are now renting from private landlords and just 9pc from public bodies. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Healey Announces Review Into Decline Of Homeownership

John Healey MP revealed he has his eye on more than just a revival of social housing, when the shadow housing minister used his speech to the Labour Party conference to announce an independent review that will seek to identify the causes for the decline of home ownership. Healey told conference that he has asked Peter Redfern, chief executive of volume housebuilder Taylor Wimpey, to lead the review to “analyse the root causes” and to “set out ideas for a wide new debate”. The Redfern Review will report back in the summer. Healey told conference that home ownership is “part of the British dream” and “More than four in five of us, aspire to own our own home. Yet home ownership has fallen each and every year over the last five years,” said Healey.  Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

First Time Home Buyers Fall Sharply

Home sales to first-time buyers continue to decline, according to the latest market report. This is in spite of an increase in the housing supply in July and the number of house hunters reaching its highest point in 11 years. The number of first-time buyers entering the market fell from 29% of all sales being made in May to just 23% in July, according to a National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) July Housing Market Report. Throughout the UK the average price for a home rose £3,000 in value in June, bringing the average total to £277,000 from £274,000 where it stood in May. The government data also show that in June 2015, on average, first-time buyers were paying 5.1% more than they were just a year before. Read more on Yahoo News.