UK Charities Warn Of Cliff Edge As Ministers Stall On Housing Funds

Housing campaigners are warning that a widely praised initiative to get people off the streets in the long term faces “catastrophic disruption” if the chancellor Rishi Sunak does not renew funding. Charities including Crisis, St Mungo’s and Homeless Link have written to the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, and the chancellor demanding the government extends finance for three pilots of Housing First in the West Midlands, Liverpool and Greater Manchester. The initiative, which gained traction in the US and involves giving homeless people homes before trying to tackle addiction or mental health problems, is being developed in England through three regional pilots. Read more on the Guardian website.

UK charities warn of cliff edge as ministers stall on housing funds | Housing | The Guardian 

Mortgage Lending Hits Record Amid Stamp Duty Rush

Mortgage borrowing in the UK has reached its highest level since modern records began as buyers rushed to beat the now-extended stamp duty holiday deadline. Bank of England figures showed that Rishi Sunak’s decision in the budget to extend the tax break until June did not dampen a burst of activity in the housing market in March. Although the number of new mortgage approvals dropped from 87,000 to 83,000 in March, they remained higher than the 73,000 recorded in February 2020, the last month before the UK went into its first pandemic-induced lockdown. Read more on the Guardian website.

UK mortgage lending hits record amid stamp duty rush | Mortgages | The Guardian

Tax Break Extension Revives Housing Market Boom

The unexpected extension of a tax break for property purchases in Rishi Sunak’s budget last month has revived a fading boom in housing market activity, a survey shows. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said its monthly gauge of house prices - based on the reports of surveyors across the country - rose in March to +59 from +52 in February. Other measures of Britain’s housing market have suggested that activity in the housing market was fading before the planned expiry of a temporary cut to property purchase tax, known as stamp duty, at the end of March. Read more on the Reuters website.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-houseprices/tax-break-extension-revives-uk-housing-market-boom-rics-idUSKBN2BU3K4

Sunak Prioritised Landlord Tax Break Over Fixing Housing Crisis

Labour has accused Rishi Sunak of announcing a tax break for second homeowners and landlords with his stamp duty cut while failing to announce measures to “tackle runaway house prices and build truly affordable housing”. Following the Budget, the opposition party has highlighted that the continuation of a reduced rate of stamp duty land tax to September will hand half a billion pounds to landlords and holiday lets. 34% of homes bought in 2019/20 were second homes, buy-to-let properties or residential properties bought by companies. Documents from the Treasury show that the reduced rate of stamp duty will cost £1.6bn. Read more on the Labour List website.

https://labourlist.org/2021/03/sunak-prioritised-landlord-tax-break-over-fixing-housing-crisis-says-labour/

Sunak Says Mortgage And Stamp Duty Measures Will Create 'Generation Buy'

A phased end to the stamp duty holiday and a government guarantee for 95% mortgages will turn “generation rent” into “generation buy”, the chancellor has claimed. Rishi Sunak said the stamp duty holiday he announced last summer had “helped hundreds of thousands of people buy a home and supported the economy at a critical time”, but that many purchases would not complete before the original deadline of 31 March. Responding to calls from the industry for a tapered extension to prevent buyers facing unexpected bills, he said that in England and Northern Ireland the threshold for the tax to start would remain at £500,000 until 30 June. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/03/rishi-sunak-mortgage-stamp-duty-holiday-budget 

Keep Funding Green Homes To Meet Emissions Target, Say Businesses

Business groups are urging the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, to keep funding home insulation and other low-carbon measures under the green homes grant, which is under threat from cuts. They warned that moves to reduce the amount of money paid out under the scheme, or abandon it altogether, would make it harder to reach the government’s target of net zero emissions by 2050, and damage the UK’s credibility as host nation of this year’s Cop26 UN climate summit and president of the G7 group of rich nations. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/22/keep-funding-green-homes-to-meet-emissions-target-say-businesses 

Housing Market Expects 100,000 Extra Home Sales In Early 2021

More than 100,000 additional house sales are expected during the first three months of 2021, as the rebound in the property market continues and buyers rush to complete their purchases before the end of the stamp duty holiday. The number of new sales being agreed remains 38% higher than it was a year ago, according to property website Zoopla. The UK housing market has rebounded since the summer because of pent-up demand following the first UK-wide lockdown, and after the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, decided in July to introduce a stamp duty holiday on properties up to £500,000 until March 2021. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/25/uk-housing-market-expects-100000-extra-home-sales-in-early-2021 

UK Mortgage Approvals Hit 13-Year High

British lenders approved the highest number of mortgages since September 2007 last month, unexpectedly extending a post-lockdown surge, but there was a record drop in unsecured lending to consumers, Bank of England data shows. Mortgage approvals for house purchase jumped to 91,454 in September from August’s already-high reading of 85,530, exceeding all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists that had instead pointed to a decline. Activity in Britain’s housing market has rebounded sharply since the end of lockdown restrictions and was further fuelled when finance minister Rishi Sunak temporarily suspended property purchase taxes in July. Read more on the Reuters website.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-economy-consumercredit/uk-mortgage-approvals-hit-13-year-high-consumer-lending-slides-idUKKBN27E1G3

Buy-To-Let Landlords Urged To Act Fast Due To The Stamp Duty Holiday

Property investors have been urged to take advantage of Rishi Sunak’s stamp duty holiday by expanding their portfolios. Buy-to-let broker Mortgages for Business recommended for investors to buy quickly before the likes of second steppers are able to do the same. The cut could benefit sellers as much as buyers, as they could take advantage of increased demand to raise prices. Read more on the Property Wire website.

https://www.propertywire.com/news/buy-to-let-landlords-should-take-advantage-of-the-stamp-duty-holiday/

Chancellor Announces £50m Social Housing Retrofit Programme

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced plans for a £50m fund to pilot innovative retrofit projects for social housing, as part of a £3bn fund for green jobs designed to jump-start the post-covid economy. The announcement comes the day after the chancellor announced a £1.6bn rescue package for the arts and a week after the prime minister announced he would bring forward £5bn for infrastructure projects in his “build, build, build” speech. The £3bn sum will fund green schemes in a “drive to power up the nation’s workforce and protect the environment”, according to a statement from the Treasury. Read more on Housing Today.

https://www.housingtoday.co.uk/news/chancellor-announces-50m-social-housing-retrofit-programme/5106864.article

Sunak Set To Announce Stamp Duty Holiday In Bid To Revive Housing Market

As part of a raft of measures aimed at getting the UK economy back on its feet, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, will reportedly reveal plans during his summer statement to increase the Stamp Duty threshold. At present, the threshold is set at £125k, but this could rise to as much as £500k according to reports. The new threshold is designed to make it more financially realistic for first-time-buyers to get onto the property ladder. However, despite the Prime Minister repeatedly stating that he wishes to overhaul the "huge problem" of stamp duty, the new threshold is believed to only be temporary. Read more on the Property Reporter website.

https://www.propertyreporter.co.uk/finance/sunak-set-to-announce-stamp-duty-holiday-in-bid-to-revive-housing-market.html

Government Announces Further Financial Support – Including Mortgage Holidays

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced a series of measures to support individuals and businesses during the coronavirus outbreak. This included the announcement that the Treasury has agreed with the body representing mortgage lenders, UK Finance, that lenders will support customers who are experiencing issues with their finances as a result of COVID-19 and the options include a payment holiday of up to three months. Although nothing has been guaranteed for buy-to-let customers, UK Finance have told us  that customers who are concerned about their current financial situation should get in touch with their lender at the earliest possible opportunity to discuss if this is a suitable option for them. Read more on the NLA website.

https://landlords.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/government-announces-further-financial-support-including-mortgage-holidays

PWLB Rates For Social Housing Cut

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has cut interest rates by one percentage point for councils seeking to take out public loans for social housing. The move returns rates for social housing to the level they were at in October before the Treasury announced a surprise one percentage point hike to the cost of borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB). Councils will now be able to borrow from the PWLB at 0.8% over gilts for social housing schemes, with authorities in England, Scotland and Wales eligible for the discount. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/pwlb-rates-for-social-housing-cut-to-pre-hike-levels-65392?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

£1bn Fund To Strip Cladding From Tall Buildings

A £1bn fund to help strip combustible cladding from homes in privately owned tower blocks is “a huge step forward”, but likely to be too little and would still leave thousands of people in financial and safety limbo, leaseholders said. The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, accepted demands to bail out hundreds of thousands of leaseholders living in buildings constructed with combustible panels that are different from those used on Grenfell Tower. His budget included the announcement of new money to remove the materials from private and social tower blocks over 18 metres tall. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/11/budget-2020-1bn-fund-to-strip-cladding-from-tall-buildings

Mortgage Lending Fell In 2019

2019 saw the first fall in annual gross mortgage lending since 2010, the UK Finance Household Finance Review (Q4 2019) has revealed. There was a decline of new loans for both residential and buy-to-let purchase products, while first-time volumes fell by 0.6%. Miles Robinson, head of mortgages at online mortgage broker Trussle, said: “The fall in mortgage lending highlights what we’ve known for some time; that there is a real lack of suitable properties at the more affordable end of the market. When you also consider the closure of the government’s Help To Buy ISA – there will be even more pressure on the new Chancellor Rishi Sunak to deliver for first-time buyers in next week’s Budget.” Read more on Property Wire.

https://www.propertywire.com/news/mortgage-lending-fell-in-2019