England is now “the most difficult place to find a home in the developed world”, housebuilders have claimed in a snapshot of the housing crisis that a more significant proportion of people in England live in substandard properties than the European Union average.
The Home Builders Federation (HBF), an industry group representing companies that build for private sale, found that England has the lowest percentage of vacant homes per capita in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of 38 nations, including most of the EU the US, Japan and Australia.
It drew the comparisons before next week’s Labour Party conference, as housebuilders again called for planning restrictions to be eased to accelerate construction.
According to OECD data, about a quarter of private renters in the UK are also “overburdened” by housing costs – spending more than 40% of income, compared with just 9% in France and 5% in Germany.
Stewart Baseley, the executive chair of the HBF, said the figures are “a wake-up call, demonstrating the urgent need to act now to prevent us falling even further behind”.
The study found the UK has the lowest number of homes built since 1980 compared with Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Housebuilders have faced attacks from environmentalists for lobbying successfully over the pollution of waterways and for delays to carbon-cutting standards. The HBF’s call for the construction of an extra 100,000 homes annually aligns with estimates by social housing providers and homelessness charities.
The construction industry has been frustrated by the government’s stop-start approach to planning reforms, as it has weighed the need for more building against opposition from voters in Tory constituencies concerned about over-development. The party lost the 2021 Chesham and Amersham byelection after the Liberal Democrats focused on the government’s plan to increase housing targets in the southeast, increasing pressure to build on the countryside.
That Britain needs more housing cannot be denied. At present, figures claim that every rental property on the market receives at least 23 inquiries, meaning that many people are struggling to find a home and rental prices are being pushed ever higher.
Allowing private house builders to increase the supply of market-rate housing for sale is not the answer, as the average price of a new home is out of reach for most of the population. Neither is the rash of apartment complexes explicitly built for rent that we have seen springing up across the UK’s cities in the last few years. The rents on these developments are far out of the reach of the average worker.
We need to see a massive increase in social housing developments in this country, which would require a significant investment by central and local governments. This would be a challenge in these cash-strapped times, but it could be addressed creatively.
Private landlords have been facing significant challenges lately, which have resulted in many leaving the business. As a result, there has been a reduction in the supply of rental properties, leading to an increase in rental prices. While private landlords play a crucial role in providing housing, there must be a fair and equitable arrangement for both landlords and renters.
A restriction on Private landlords buying in certain areas or price ranges may be one way, with housing available for first-time buyers or starter families protected to remain open at a more reasonable price. In areas with a lack of affordable housing where homes are being bought up as holiday lets or short-term rentals, we have seen a lot of damage being done by the massive rise in property being bought up for short-term lets, though some cities and councils are now starting to try to address this. Longer tenancies to provide more security of tenure for renters would also be a step forward, as would rent controls.
At the same time, landlords must know that they can remove anti-social tenants easily and have a better system of long-term finance to protect them from the sudden massive increase in interest rates that we have seen recently driving up their costs and rents. Rouge landlords should face harsher sanctions; though most landlords are decent people, those in the property sector will always take advantage of people and provide substandard services.
The provision of housing built for sale by social housing companies where the property price is linked to the wages of those living within the area and the resale price stays connected to the affordable living wage is one way forward that should be explored. There would need protection to stop incomers snapping up the properties from outwith the areas until the needs of the local population had been addressed. Many local communities have been devastated as families who have lived in places for generations are forced to move away and replaced with well-off incomers, student housing providers or for-profit rental companies driving up prices in once-affordable areas.
Councils and other public bodies selling off land and property they own to private buyers rather than utilising it for the common good should also be ended.
A reworking of the mortgage market for Landlords and the average house hunter is urgently needed. The system of short-term rates and trackers could be more sustainable. A fixed-rate method for the whole loan term is the best way forward; it does exist but is used sparingly. Knowing you were to pay one rate for the 25, 30 or maybe even 35-year loan term would enable people to plan, especially if they could transfer the rate and loan when they chose to move home.
The housing market in the UK needs reform; it cannot be denied, but none of the main political parties seem to have the will to make the massive investment in public housing and other necessary reforms.
