Tag Archives: london
Group of experts created to help bring more affordable homes to London
The Mayor of London has released the first details of his plans to set up what he describes as a powerful Homes for Londoners team at City Hall to oversee home building in the capital and boost the delivery of new and affordable homes. As a first step Sadiq Khan has begun recruiting new experts to scrutinise 'viability assessments', the financial details that lie behind how much affordable housing new developments include. The experts, who will be drawn from finance surveyors and property consultant experts and be based at City Hall, will support housing delivery by making planning decisions faster and more consistent, and by ensuring new developments include the maximum amount of affordable housing. Khan will also lead a new Homes for Londoners board, formed of London Boroughs, housing associations, and developers. The board will oversee delivery, land assembly and investment decisions, and will draw on expertise from across the housing and property sectors to help develop new policy for the capital. ‘Home ownership has been slipping increasingly out of reach for more and more Londoners, and rents have been getting harder and harder to afford. I want to be honest with Londoners from the start that it will take time to turn things around,’ he said. ‘I am determined that Londoners get the same opportunities this great city gave me. That is why I am setting up my Homes for Londoners team to speed up home building and to move towards 50% of new homes in London being genuinely affordable to rent and buy,’ he added. A review of capacity and skills across the GLA will now get underway. Its aim is to ensure the Homes for Londoners team can play a more active role in the delivery of housing, particularly in bringing forward public land in London, and speeding up the planning process. This may also lead to additional expertise and support being recruited into the team in due course. David Montague, chair of the g15, said that Homes for Londoners will bring together the GLA, housing associations, local authorities and house builders to tackle the capital's housing crisis. ‘The priority now must be to build a long term pipeline of clean serviced and consented land. With this we can guarantee apprenticeships, jobs, economic growth, thriving communities and affordable homes. Without it, London will lose out in the competition for investment and growth,’ he pointed out. Baroness Jo Valentine, chief executive London First, which has published a major report on Homes for Londoners, described the move as an important and encouraging step towards solving the capital's housing crisis. ‘We want it to have a relentless focus on delivery, including getting more public land into the market,’ she added. According to Steve Bullock, executive member for housing, London Councils, believes that it will help all key agencies work closer together towards building the thousands of extra homes London urgently needs. Continue reading
Annual price growth slowing in key cities in UK, index data shows
The annual rate of house growth in key cities in the UK has started to slow after 12 successive months of rising prices, according to the latest index figures to be published. But there is some regional variation and house prices in large regional cities outside southern England continue to grow while those in London have seen a market slowdown, the Hometrack cities index shows. Outside the south house price growth continues to hold steady at 7% to 8% per annum with no sign of an imminent slowdown. Aberdeen is also registering a slower rate of price falls compared to recent months with a decline of 8% compared to 10% the previous month. Overall city house prices increased by 9.5% year on year in July, down from 9.9% in June with Bristol in the south west seeing the strongest growth at 14% followed by London at 11.7%. While quarter on quarter the highest growth was in lower value, higher yielding cities where prices are rising off a lower base such as Glasgow, up 5.2%, Liverpool up 4.4% and Manchester and Nottingham both up 3.4%. Even although it has the second largest annual price growth, London has registered a marked slowdown in house price growth over the last three months. Average growth in the last quarter was 2.1%, the lowest rate for 17 months. The index report suggests this is due to weaker investor demand, affordability pressures and Brexit uncertainty impact demand at the same time as supply has risen. It points out that prices are still well up year on year but the signs are growth will slow further over the coming months. Cambridge saw prices fall by 1% over the last quarter and the report says that prices in the city are more sensitive to weaker demand although the annual rate of growth is still running at 7.1%. The report says that in the absence of adverse economic trends impacting employment and mortgage rates, the near term outlook is for a continued slowdown in London and stable growth rates in regional cities as households’ price record low mortgage rates into city house price where affordability remains attractive. ‘We continue to believe that turnover will register the brunt of the slowdown in London. In the face of lower sales volumes agents will look to re-price stock in line with what buyers are prepared, and can afford, to pay,’ the report explains. ‘Past experience shows that this process can run for as long as six months and relies, in part, in how quickly sellers are willing to adjust to what buyers are prepared to pay,’ it concludes. Continue reading
Gross mortgage lending slows in UK post Brexit
Gross mortgage lending in the UK held steady in July and was an estimated £21.4 billion, similar to June but 1% lower than July last year. The data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) is the first full month since the country voted to leave the European Union and it is too soon to see how much of an impact Brexit is having. CML chief economist Bob Pannell explained that the subdued nature of property transactions and mortgage lending in July are consistent with a less positive backdrop for house purchase activity post-referendum. ‘The Bank of England expects stronger economic headwinds to build as we move into 2017, and the Monetary Policy Committee’s package of monetary policy measures represents a spirited effort to lean against these on a timely basis. The MPC has pencilled in a further cut in Bank Rate later this year, but aims to avoid negative interest rate territory,’ he said. ‘The Term Funding Scheme should boost market sentiment a little, by engineering broader cuts to rates for existing mortgage borrowers than would have been the case, but it is not clear how well the Bank’s actions will underpin borrower demand in a more adverse economic climate,’ he added. Steve Bolton, founder of Platinum Property Partners, pointed out that the buy to let market was particularly impacted and purchase activity in June had almost halved compared to a year ago but the buy to let remortgage activity has picked up year on year. ‘Landlords are well positioned to benefit from falling mortgage rates as a result of the recent base rate cut. A mortgage can often be one of the greatest costs for landlords, so swapping to a more affordable deal is well worth the effort,’ he said. ‘Landlords are now operating in an uncertain political and economic environment, and further legislative changes which will phase out the ability to treat mortgage interest payments as a legitimate business cost could lead to many leaving the market or being deterred from expanding their portfolio,’ he explained. ‘This could lead to rising rents for many tenants and less affordable housing provision in the Private Rented Sector. It will therefore be interesting to see how this will have a knock-on effect on mortgage lending,’ he pointed out. ‘However, investing in property has proven to give strong returns when done effectively. It is now more important than ever that amateur landlords ensure they manage their properties professionally to build a profitable long term investment,’ he added. According to John Goodall, chief executive officer of peer to peer platform Landbay, despite some Brexit uncertainty it is clear that the property market, and in turn the mortgage market, is built on strong foundations, so the outlook is optimistic. ‘The UK’s housing shortage will remain a pivotal political and social issue, so we should expect buyer demand and lending levels to bounce back later in the year as the dust settles. In the meantime, it’s… Continue reading
