Affordable Housing: Grants – Parliamentary Written Answer

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb: To ask Her Majesty's Government what conditions are placed on the disbursement of funds through affordable housing grants from Homes England.

Viscount Younger of Leckie: Registered providers are able to bid into the Programme for funding to build Rent to Buy and affordable rented homes; funding for Shared Ownership is also open to private providers. Registered providers can also bid for funding to deliver social rent homes in areas of high affordability pressure. The conditions guidance for the Affordable Homes Programme is published by the Department as part of its Capital Funding Guide. The funding guide can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/capital-funding-guide

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Lords/2020-01-08/HL215

Council Housing Company To Offer Rent To Buy

Liverpool City Council’s housing company is set to start building homes for a new Rent to Buy scheme. The company, Foundations, will start with a pilot of 14 new homes in Dingle in the south of the city if the council’s cabinet approves the plans at a meeting on 21 June. People will be able to rent a home at 80% of the market rate in order to help them save towards a mortgage to buy the property, with the option to purchase after 12 months and for up to five years at market value. The scheme will be available to people who live or work in Liverpool and are first-time buyers or have had to sell a home because of a relationship breakdown. Read more on the Speye Joe blog.

https://speyejoe2.wordpress.com/2019/06/10/council-housing-oh-no-its-not-ethical-my-ae-shame-on-you-mayor-joe-anderson/

Only One In 10 Rent To Buy Tenants Purchases Home

Responding to an Inside Housing survey, nine large housing associations revealed they have completed a total of 1,594 Rent to Buy homes over the past decade but have sold just 180 to the original tenants.  Rent to Buy offers a fixed-term tenancy of usually five years at a discounted rate, with the tenant supposed to buy the home or a share in it at the end of this period. But the survey results reveal just 11.3% of tenants were able to do so, with the remainder either continuing to rent or moving out at the end of this period. Read more on Inside Housing.

Lib Dems Unveil 'Rent To Buy' Pledge For First Time Homeowners

Tens of thousands of young renters will be offered “rent to buy” deposit-free homes as part of a Liberal Democrat manifesto aimed at enticing a younger generation to back the party. The announcement is the flagship policy among a number of reforms aimed at attracting younger voters, also those most likely to be receptive to the party’s hard remain message and a promise of a referendum on the final Brexit deal to allow voters to opt to stay in the EU. Under the “rent to buy” pledge, young professionals and working families unable to afford a home would be able to buy their first home for the same cost as renting, with each monthly payment steadily buying a share in the home. Read more on the Guardian website.

Rent To Buy Scheme To Help Aspiring Home Owners

More than 80 families will have the chance to get their feet on the property ladder thanks to £2 million of Government funding. EPIC Housing has been awarded the money under the Homes and Communities Agency's Rent to Buy scheme, which will allow it to help first-time buyers save for their home. EPIC, which is contributing £6 million to the programme, will give aspiring home owners the chance to choose a property for sale, which they would eventually like to purchase, in North Staffordshire. Only homes requiring repairs costing between £1,500 and £10,000 will qualify for the scheme - as one of the aims is to bring homes back into use. Read more on the Stoke Sentinel website.

First Wave Of Starter Homes Reignites Distortion Fears

The first wave of Starter Homes will be sale-only products, reigniting fears over their distorting effect on local housing markets. Housing minister Gavin Barwell had suggested some ‘Starter Homes’ would be rent-to-buy products. The government has confirmed that all homes built on brownfield sites by the 30 partner councils would be entirely for-sale products. These councils will use a share of £1.2bn of government cash to prepare brownfield sites for large developments of the homes, which will be sold at 80% of market value. Experts warned these units could be almost impossible to value against market rates and may even create a sub-market for Starter Homes, as demand for these cheaper properties spirals, skewing prices. Read more on Inside Housing.

Government Offers £7bn Affordable Homes Fund To Housing Providers

Housing providers can apply for a share of a £7bn fund to increase the supply of affordable homes, the government has announced. Housing associations, local authorities and private developers in England are able to bid for funding to build thousands of shared ownership, rent-to-buy and affordable rented homes in what the CLG described as a “dramatic expansion” of its housing programme. However, the £7bn figure is compiled from previous announcements. It is made up of £4.7bn in grants announced in April 2016, £1.4bn that was announced in the November 2016 autumn statement, and about £1bn that was allocated under a previous affordable homes programme. Read more on the Guardian website.

HCA Chair Reveals Equal Split Of Funding For Tenures

The government’s £4.7bn Affordable Homes Programme could equally fund affordable housing, Rent to Buy and homeownership products, the chair of the HCA has revealed. Sir Edward Lister said the Affordable Homes Programme will be “very much a third, a third, a third arrangement” including homeownership, Rent to Buy and “an element of affordable”. Chancellor Philip Hammond revealed in the Autumn Statement that the rules around the Affordable Homes Programme will be relaxed to fund affordable rented and Rent to Buy homes. However, housing minister Gavin Barwell appeared to contradict this. He was asked what proportion of the programme would fund affordable rented and social rented housing. He responded: “What we have done with the Affordable Homes Programme is to give complete flexibility, so I can’t give a specific answer because it will depend on the bids housing associations make from the programme.” Read more on Inside Housing.

Housing Gets £4bn Boost To Increase Number Of New Homes

The chancellor committed almost £4bn to housing in his autumn statement, in a move he said represented a step-change in the government’s ambition to increase the supply of homes for sale and rent. The money, which the Treasury said was new cash, will be spent through two funds: one providing money for infrastructure projects to make sites viable for building, the other providing money for affordable homes. Measures to tackle the housing crisis included:

·         A £2.3bn housing infrastructure fund for local authorities to help deliver up to 100,000 homes

·         An extra £1.4bn for local authorities and housing associations to provide affordable housing to rent or buy

·         The roll-out of right-to-buy to 3,000 more housing association tenants

Read more on the Guardian website.

Tory Housing Policy Overhaul Could Include Rent-To-Buy

The government is considering a shift in its housing policy away from a primary focus on home ownership in an acceptance that many people on lower incomes cannot afford to buy a property and instead need help with renting.  An announcement on housing is expected at the Conservative party conference, sources connected to housing policy have said. While it remains unclear what this will involve, ministers are understood to be interested in the idea of rent-to-buy schemes. This general trend has already been signalled, with housing minister Gavin Barwell saying in a speech earlier this month that the country needed more homes for rent below market rates, as well as homes to buy. Read more on the Guardian website.

Thinktank Calls For 75,000 "Living Rent" Homes A Year

The Government should build 75,000 homes a year aimed at low paid workers, a think tank has argued. Renewal said the Rent to Buy model should be scaled up and rents reduced to allow people to save for a deposit.  Living Rents would be set at no more than one-third of the average low income in an area. Properties would have a five to 10-year tenancy as a minimum to provide "security and stability, while still encouraging mobility and efficiency in the use of stock. After two years, tenants would have the option of buying their home at a discount similar to those offered under Right to Buy. This would be facilitated through an extension of Help to Buy-style equity loans. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Social Rented Housing: Construction – Parliamentary Written Answer

Oliver Colvile:  To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many affordable rent-to-buy houses are being constructed.

Brandon Lewis: Through the Autumn Statement 2015, the Government has committed to investing £8 billion to deliver over 400,000 affordable housing starts by 2020/21. This includes £1.7 billion to deliver around 100,000 homes for affordable or intermediate rent, of which 10,000 are to be affordable rent to buy homes that enable tenants to have the opportunity to save for a deposit while renting. Bids into the Rent to Buy 2015-2017 programme are currently being considered. The prospectus for the new Affordable Homes Programme 2016-21 will be launched shortly.

Social Rented Housing – Parliamentary Written Answer

Julian Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will provide exemptions from the pay to stay scheme for tenants in affordable rent-to-buy properties.

Brandon Lewis: We will consider the case carefully for exceptions from the policy and will set out the detail in due course.

Rent to Buy 2015 To 2017: Prospectus

Bidding is now open for a share of up to £200 million of recoverable loan investment aimed at new build affordable homes, under the new Rent to Buy programme. Applications can be submitted to the Homes and Communities Agency via the Investment Management System from 29 September 2014. Bidders have the flexibility to repay the loan at any time but must retain and let the homes at affordable rent for a minimum of 7 years post completion. They must also repay the loan no later than 16 years after construction of the funded homes. Funding is available for schemes outside of London. Find full details on the HCA website.

Conservative Conference 2014: Housing Roundup

Catch up with the most important housing stories to emerge from the Conservative conference 2014 with our at-a-glance roundup.

·         100,000 discount new homes for first-time buyers

·         Working-age benefits would be frozen until 2017

·         Benefit cap to be cut to £23,000

·         Rent-to-buy fund announced

·         Housing benefit scrapped for 18- to 21-year-olds

·         Prepaid benefit cards to replace cash

Read details of all the above on the Guardian website.

'Rent to Buy' to Help People to Build Up a Deposit

Tens of thousands of young people will be able to rent new homes at below-market rates with the opportunity to buy them at the end of their tenancy. Housing associations and social landlords will be given £400million worth of cheap loans to build new homes. Under a new “Rent to Buy” scheme, the associations and landlords will have to rent the new houses out at below market rates – capped at 80 per cent of local market value – for seven years. After this period, people will be given the opportunity to buy the homes. The policy will be aimed at young people trying to build up a deposit to get on the housing ladder rather than those on benefits. The government claims 10,000 new homes will be built under the plans between 2015 and 2017. Read more on the Daily Telegraph website.

Six Popular Housebuilding Policies

At Shelter we have long argued that housebuilding can be a vote winner. We know from our campaigns that engaging the public in the problem isn’t too difficult – almost universally, they are worried about where their kids are going to live. But when it comes to solutions, one of the things that holds housing back among political types is the belief that housebuilding itself isn’t, well, very sexy.  So, we asked Populus to poll six possible housebuilding policies. We then asked respondents to pick their favourite, and whether they would still support that policy even if it meant more homes being built in their local area.  The six policies were;

1. Rent to Buy    

2. Part buy part-rent homes        

3. ‘New Homes Deal’      

4. Zero deposit homes

5. New council homes with the option of Right to Buy     

6. Home-buyers discount

Read more details of each one on the Shelter website.