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UK housing market needs to address needs of ageing population, says new report
The need for an increase in the supply of new housing across the UK is now recognised as a key social and political issue but it needs to include housing for a rapidly ageing populations, says a new report. New home building needs to be widened with policymakers looking at how it can meet the needs of different buyers, especially older people, according to the latest Retirement Housing report from real estate firm Knight Frank. It points out that the population in the UK is expected to increase by nearly 10 million over the next 25 years, taking the total number of people to 74.3 million by 2039 and says that a rapidly growing population has ramifications for an already stretched housing market in the UK. But within this overarching challenge there is an issue which is becoming more pressing and that is providing housing suitable for an ageing population. Around 23% of the population are currently aged over 60. During the next 20 years this proportion will rise to 29%. This will push the median age across the UK from 40 today to nearly 43 in 2039, by which time nearly one in 12 people will be aged 80 or over, according to forecasts from the Office for National Statistics. In terms of housing, official data shows that households headed by older people account for nearly 30% of all dwellings. Of the projected increase in all households between 2012 and 2037, more than three quarters will be headed up by someone aged 65 or over, the report says. It explains that a significant cohort of home owners do not want to move house in older age, and instead will make changes to their current home to accommodate changes in their lifestyle and health as time goes on. ‘However, there are also a notable proportion of older people who do envisage moving house or downsizing to a home that better suits their requirements. This may mean moving to a more manageable property and moving to be much closer to amenities in the centres of towns and cities,’ the report adds. Specialist Knight Frank research shows that around 25% of those aged over 55 said they wanted to move into some sort of retirement housing in the future. This equates to around 2.5 million households. Meanwhile, a recent snapshot of buying intentions across 1,500 UK households within Knight Frank’s House Price Sentiment Index, produced in conjunction with Markit Economics, showed that 29% of over 55s planned to buy a property at some point in the future, while 35% were undecided. It adds that while some of these intentions may relate to investment property, the overall picture is one where the idea of downsizing is not being ruled out. It also explains that the UK housing market currently has a significant supply shortage, but the scale of the undersupply in retirement housing is highlighted when we examine the pipeline of new housing being built. Only… Continue reading
UK housing market grew at an accelerated rate, latest housing market bulletin shows
Average house prices are continuing to grow in the UK and at an accelerating rate with the South East, the East of England and London seeing the strongest growth, according to the latest Housing Market Bulletin. The report, published by the Homes and Communities Agency using data from house prices indices, lenders and construction companies, shows that residential sales surged forward strongly in March. It also shows that gross mortgage lending continues to see robust growth with levels over one third higher than a year ago and private sector house building investment continues to increase, but public sector investment has stalled. The value of Greenfield residential development land is slipping, but urban land is increasing. A breakdown of the figures shows that there were 141,310 residential property transactions in England in March 2016, which is 80.6% higher than one year earlier. It says that this sharp uptick could have been the result of by buy to let buyers having brought forward purchases in order to avoid increased Stamp Duty tax liabilities from April. There were a total of 1,135,830 transactions in England in the year to the end of March 2016. This is 9.9% higher than in the previous 12 months. Aside from this the spike in the data in March, the seasonally adjusted monthly total has been moving strongly upwards for the past year. The total stock of property for sale remains historically low. In England and Wales overall, the number of properties entering the market was down 6% in March compared to a year before and the supply shortage is most keenly felt in the West Midlands and the South West regions where, respectively, 12% and 11% less stock was registered for sale with estate agents compared to March 2015. Greater London was the only English region with increased numbers of homes coming to the market, up 6% on the same month in 2015. Gross mortgage lending reached an estimated £25.7 billion in March. This is 59% higher than March 2015 and gross mortgage lending for the first quarter of this year was an estimated £62.1bn, which is 39% higher than the first three months of 2015. There were a total of over 23.5 million dwellings in England in 2015, which is 704,000 or 3.1% more than in 2010. The number of private sector homes had increased by 649,000 or 3.5%, and there were over 209,000 or 9.3% more private registered provider homes. But the number of Local Authority owned homes fell by nearly 143,000 or 8% over the same period. The Output in the Construction Industry indices show the total value of new housing development in Great Britain is unchanged in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the same quarter in 2014. The trend in the private sector has been of sustained steady increase over at least three years. The public new housing sector enjoyed expansion during 2013 and most of 2014 but then had four quarters of shrinking… Continue reading
Capital city home values up 3.3% in first four months of 2016
Home values in Australian capital cities continued to rise in the first four months of 2016, up 3.3% compared to the same period in 2015, the latest index shows. In April, the pace of capital gains rebounded from the relatively flat numbers recorded in March, with dwelling values increasing by an average of 1.7%, according to the Corelogic April home value index. Across the country, housing market trends remain mixed, however, and CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless noted that the improvement in the rate of capital gains has been ‘broad based’ during 2016 with every capital city except Perth recording a lift in dwelling values over the calendar year to date. ‘The results show value growth moved at a faster pace compared with the final three months of 2015 when capital city dwelling values slid 1.4% lower off the back of weaker market conditions in Sydney and Melbourne,’ he explained. ‘While we’ve seen capital gains moderate substantially after peaking last year in Sydney and Melbourne, dwelling values continue to trend higher, just not as fast,’ he added. The data shows that the annual rate of growth in Sydney peaked at 18.4% in July last year and has since moderated back to slightly less than half the peak rate of growth, at 8.9% over the most recent 12 month period. Melbourne’s housing market continues to show a level of resilience to a slowing trend, however the annual growth rate has fallen from a recent peak of 14.2% to the current annual growth rate of 10.1% but Melbourne was the only capital city to see double digit growth over the past year. Perth and Darwin remain as the only two capital city markets to experience a decline in home values over the past 12 months, with Perth values down 2.1% and Darwin values 3.7% lower. ‘With recent month on month increases in home values in these two cities, the declining trend rate is now levelling. This may be an early sign that these markets are beginning to find their cyclical trough after more than a year of annual declines,’ said Lawless. Over the current growth cycle, which commenced broadly in June 2012, capital city dwelling values have moved 34.4% higher, led by a 52.7% rise in Sydney home values and a 37.1% lift in Melbourne values. Lawless pointed out that this highlights the two tiered nature of Australia’s housing market at present. Brisbane experienced the third highest rate of dwelling value growth over the growth cycle to date and dwelling values in the city are now up 18% and Lawless explained that Australia’s regional markets also exhibited a lift in house values over the year to date. He added that while house values across the non-capital city markets have generally underperformed compared with the capital city regions, regional house values moved 2.4% higher over the first quarter of the year. Continue reading
