Tag Archives: investment
Billions to be invested in homes for sale and rent in Ireland
Some €200 million it to be put into an Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund in Ireland aimed at opening up large sites in areas where people need homes. This is to relieve critical infrastructural blockages to allow for the delivery of homes on key sites and to improve the economic viability and purchaser affordability of new housing projects and deliver 20,000 new homes by 2020. The Irish Government has also announced under its Housing Action Plan that €5.35 billion will be allocated to the development of social housing with the aim of building 47,000 more social housing units by 2021. There will also be changes to planning to allow large scale residential development planning applications to be fast tracked. The Government said it will legislate to allow for larger housing development applications of 100 plus units to be made directly to An Bord Pleanala, the country’s independent planning body. An Bord Pleanala is also set to prioritise the determination of all planning appeals for large scale developments. This is to be done within an 18 to 20 week period and the roll-out of e-planning is also being looked at. The action plan also includes increasing the supply of home to rent and support for a stable rental sector. A national policy for appropriate on and off-campus accommodation for students will also be developed. The Housing Agency will be allocated €70 million to acquire suitable portfolios of vacant properties to be let under a national vacant housing reuse strategy. A register of vacant properties across the country will be drawn up and the planning rules for change of use of vacant commercial units to a residential units will be reviewed. However, according to the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) critical skills shortages across all sectors of the housing market in Ireland will urgently need to be addressed to deliver the scale of housing delivery needed. Claire Solon, SCSI president, said that a National body with real authority and mandate is needed not just for housing, but also for national infrastructural planning. ‘It’s clear from the Action Plan that in several areas, it’s the need for projects like road completions, or water and drainage schemes that are actually preventing the delivery of housing,’ she pointed out. ‘The industry has shown itself be to resourceful following many difficult years, but there needs to be significant investment now to address the skills shortage in all sectors, professional, technical and trades,’ she explained. ‘We will be asking the Minister of Finance to specifically resource our sector in the upcoming Budget for training of apprentices, graduates and to help encourage workers from other sectors to transfer to construction and property roles. The industry plays a vital role in our economy and after many years of underinvestment, negative reporting and poor output, it needs radical intervention to upscale and deliver what could be one of the most important development stages in the history of our country,’ she added. The SCSI also believes… Continue reading
Residential sales in UK up by almost 5% between May and June
The provisional seasonally adjusted UK property transaction count for June 2016 was 94,550 residential and 10,930 non-residential transactions. Residential property sales recorded in the UK increased by almost 5% between May and June 2016, according to the latest estimated figures to be published. The residential transaction count was 94,550 and while this is up 4.9% month on month, it is 10.2% lower compared with the same month last year. The large increase in transactions for March 2016 followed by the substantial reduction in April is likely to be associated with the introduction of the higher rates on additional properties in April 2016, according to HMRC which publishes the figures. However, whilst April and May 2016 are lower than the corresponding months in 2015, it should be noted that the total for March to May 2016 is still substantially higher than the corresponding period last year, it pointed out. The additional property rates were announced in the Autumn Statement 2015 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and in the Scottish Government's draft 2016/2017 budget for Scotland. Non-tax factors may have played a role as well, for example the Bank of England's plans to curb buy to let mortgages resulting in a rush to purchase before April 2016, and the European Union referendum affecting transactions in recent months. The residential count includes properties paying the main and additional rates. For June 2016 the number of non-adjusted residential transactions was about 21.2% higher compared with May 2016. The number of non-adjusted residential transactions was 11.1% lower than in June 2015. According to Doug Crawford, chief executive officer of My Home Move, June’s figures show a market returning to health after a very quiet April and May which was due to investors doing business earlier in the year to avoid the stamp duty changes. ‘While the number of property transactions remain below the levels seen a year earlier, a 4.9% increase between May and June is very encouraging. My Home Move’s own data suggests that the number of completions in June 2016 was actually 2.7% higher than in June 2015,’ he said. ‘The June increase shows that the property market mostly shook off the uncertainty from the Brexit referendum at the end of the month. This reflects our experience as most purchases went ahead without any issues. The big question now is what the impact will be for the rest of the year,’ he explained. ‘While this is less clear, our view is that the fundamentals of the property market are strong enough that there will not be a significant impact. There have been anecdotal reports of a slight slowdown in July from the estate agents we work with, but it is impossible to tell how much of this is actually Brexit related and how much is down to a normal summer slowdown. The picture will only start to be clearer in September after the holiday season,’ he said. Continue reading
BPF calls for policy measures to support commercial real estate post Brexit vote
The British Property Federation (BPF) has called in the UK Government to consider a raft of policy measures to support real estate, particularly the commercial sector. The calls comes following the publication of the latest report from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) which shows a significant decline in confidence, activity and investor interest in UK commercial real estate. The report, covering the second quarter of 2016, says that investment demand for commercial real estate has fallen sharply and that, although some immediate turbulence was to be expected following the European Union referendum, the sector may in fact face a far more significant downturn. The BPF is urging the Government to monitor the situation closely and consider introducing a package of support for the real estate sector, including accelerating its proposed reform of business rates to support activity in the broader business economy. It also wants it to delay the introduction of plans to restrict the tax deductibility of corporate interest expense for a year until 2018, to ensure that the rules are implemented in a way that doesn’t deter investment. And the BBP suggests the introduction of a range of tax reliefs for Build to Rent development, including CIL relief, relief for modular construction, and stamp duty relief for new build to rent developments on the condition that they will be let on tenancies of three years or longer with rent increases tied to inflation. It also wants an absolute and continued commitment to devolution and public infrastructure investment in the HS2 rail project, the East-West Rail Line, Crossrail 2, and an imperative decision on growing airport capacity. ‘This is not the time for knee jerk reactions, but commercial property and a number of the government’s priorities are interdependent,’ said Ian Fletcher, director of real estate policy at the BPF. ‘Ministers must closely monitor developments in the commercial property market and be ready to act in weeks, not months, if evidence continues of a slowdown in investment,’ he pointed out. ‘Commercial property investment is not always an obvious priority for governments because its social and economic impacts are indirect, but construction and development activity flow from it, ultimately impacting on jobs and economic growth,’ he added. ‘In scenarios like this the focus is often on construction, but you don’t get construction without an investment client, so it is essential that government monitors fluctuations in investment very closely,’ he concluded. Continue reading
