“Fixing Our Broken Housing Market” – the catchy
title given to the long awaited government document outlining the key
strategies and plans to increase supply and create a more efficient housing
market in line with the aspirations and requirements of all households. But
what exactly is the plan? And how will this change the Bournemouth property
market going forward?
The 94-page document presented yesterday had already picked up wide criticism for the continued delays – originally due to be published on 23rd November. And with the release, the criticism didn’t stop there. Across the industry the document has been slammed as being nothing more than vague statements of long term government aspirations rather than a strategy of action for the issues currently present in the market.
So what are the headline proposals?
- Ensuring each part of the country has an up to date development plan to create the proposed new build target and holding local authorities to account.
- Simplifying the planning process to make it easier for developers to get started, as well as increasing capacity to get decisions made faster.
- Making more land available from public sites and Brownfield land – however maintaining and strengthening the protection of Green Belt.
- Ensuring infrastructure is provided in the right place at the right time by coordinating Government investment and through the targeting of the £2.3bn Housing Infrastructure Fund.
- Backing small and medium-sized builders to grow, including through the Home Building Fund;
- Encouraging more institutional investors into housing, including for building more homes for private rent, and encouraging family- friendly tenancies with the possibility of an incentivised 3-year tenancy.
- Supporting housing associations and local authorities to build more homes.
- Making renting fairer for tenants.
- A crack down on empty homes.
- Doing more to prevent homelessness and rough sleepers.
The government has always sang the same song about getting more people into the housing market by encouraging and helping first time buyers. This presentation however seems to concede this aspiration is one step too far and instead shows a shift of focus into the rental sector to improve standards and be ‘fairer’ to tenants.
So how will this announcement affect the Bournemouth property market?
Well in my opinion there seems to be a distinct lack of detail on how they will implement their proposals – so it is very difficult to tell. The Bournemouth market has a very strong rental market, and the shift in focus towards rental properties can only be a good thing to improve standards and increase housing supply levels. There continues to be high levels of development in and around the town, and making the planning process easier and more efficient will only help in getting projects started and completed sooner.
What I do struggle with however is the actions that have been taken by the government of late has been anything but pro-rental. In fact the Stamp Duty increase on Buy To Let and second homes, coupled with the incoming changes to mortgage interest relief has only discouraged property investment and increase local homelessness as landlords looking to evict and sell their properties. Then of course we have the proposed removal of tenant fee’s which will impact the professional agents who look to offer protection to tenants and increase standards in the sector. Perhaps that is one of the reasons the 94-page document make little to no mention of private landlords and agents despite the core focus being a shift to the rental market.
It will be interesting to see what, if any, affect these proposals will have on the Bournemouth market. I think it would be safe to assume there will be little impact in the near future, however quite possibly further opportunities in the longer future for further development and growth of the rental market.
All the Best
Luke
