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The Deputy Prime Minister will lead a 300+ strong delegation to the Saudi GREAT FUTURES flagship event in Riyadh on 14 and 15 May 2024.

Neal Hudson, from the Building Societies Association (BSA), has completed new research offering potential policy solutions that can help ease pressures faced by first-time buyers.  

Within the new report, which was published this morning, Neal Hudson suggests home ownership among younger people has been in decline for the past 20 years and it is showing no signs of improvement.

‘Becoming a first-time buyer is possibly the most expensive it has been over at least the last 70 years, but a properly functioning housing market is dependent on first-time buyers being able to afford their first home,’ Hudson said. ‘New thinking and radical changes are needed.’

In the report, which can be found in full here, Hudson offers various solutions that could improve the property market, from financial support to bridging the gap between ageist stereotypes. However, Hudson claims that no change will be made unless the government initiates the first move.  

In the report, Hudson said: ‘[The] government should commission an independent review of the first-time buyer market, regulation and government intervention, which would deliver a clear starting point for action. The objective should be to increase the number of true non-returner first-time buyers, both now and in the future.’

Against this backdrop, the research highlights a series of suggestions that the government could do to improve the market. These include:

• Prioritising improving the supply of both existing and new homes including increased delivery of affordable homes
• Revising the planning system with more of a focus on strategic planning and less focus on development control
• Reform property taxation to increase market liquidity and encourage more efficient use of existing homes
• Ensuring Stamp Duty Tax continues to favour first-time buyers above anyone else

 Arguably, the publication of this research couldn’t have come at a better time. The statistics found add to an already sky-high stack, showcasing that without proper addressal, the problem will continue to accelerate.

The report found that currently, buying a home requires two above-average incomes, which mirrors recent figures that have been published by the property portal Rightmove. The organisation found that a lot of the activity in the housing market since the beginning of 2024 was among large, four-bedroom properties.

These types of homes will be out of reach for majority of first-time buyers, but Rightmove said asking prices were staring to increase again.

In addition, the Resolution Foundation think tank has also published data recently which remarked that the most common living arrangement for an adult aged between 18 and 34 in 1997 was being in a couple with children, but now it was living with your parents.

Although, findings from the latest Census research highlighted that young people would even find it difficult to go into a rented property whilst saving up to buy their own home, as private rental costs in the UK have risen by a shocking 9.2% within the last year.

Image: Thought Catalog

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In an attempt to boost housing supply councils will now be required to build on brownfield sites and low-quality parts of the green belt will be released for construction.

This morning, Sir Keir Starmer announced five new rules that will help England out of the ‘housing emergency’ created by the Conservatives. Starmer said the issue is ‘engulfing a generation of hard-working aspirational people’.

Part of the plans include Labour sticking to its brownfield first policy, but Starmer has said the party will also be releasing ‘poor quality and ugly areas’ of the green belt.

Labour said that plans must target at least 50% affordable housing delivery on grey belt land that is released.

Following this, Knight Frank, a real-estate firm, has found 11,000 grey belt sites in England and has estimated that they could be used to deliver around 100,000 new family properties, potentially increasing to over 200,000.

Commenting on the news, Kate Henderson, chief executive of the National Federation of Builders (NFB) said: ‘Building on brownfield land alone will not deliver enough homes to solve this crisis, so it’s right to consider how our approach to the green belt can better serve our country and our communities.’

However, Conservative Party chairman, Richard Holden, said: ‘Only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives will respect local communities building the right homes in the right places which has delivered one million homes over this Parliament and sticking to the plan to reduce inflation and get mortgage rates down to help first-time buyers.’

In addition to announcing the brownfield and grey bely policies, the other rules outlined by Labour today include:

• Prioritising affordable homes
• Boosting public services and infrastructure
• Protecting genuine green space

Rico Wojulewicz, head of policy and market insight at NFB, said: ‘The devil will always be in the detail, but Labour appears to understand that placemaking requires input and support from all quarters and that the housebuilder’s job is to build the homes, not control what infrastructure is required, how offsite nature links up to a new development and why a site is allocated for new homes.

‘Alongside other announcements and discussions, such as reforming compulsory purchase and having more onsite biodiversity opportunities, it feels as though we have a political party which understands the problems planning uncertainty causes for housebuilders, communities, nature, and society at large.’

Echoing a similar tone, Lawrence Turner, director of Boyer, has claimed that we need a government who are genuinely going to deliver on housing targets.

‘As the UK’s housing crisis continues to worsen, the need for a joined-up approach to deliver more homes is urgently required,’ Lawrence said. ‘Addressing the housing crisis needs to encompass the use of brownfield and greenfield sites, the establishment of new settlements and the carefully considered release of Green Belt land.’

Lawrence added: ‘The latter is something that the current government has avoided for the last 14 years.  Kier Starmer is correct when he says: ‘We cannot build the homes Britain needs without also releasing some land currently classed as green belt’.

‘It is important to recognise that green belt land does not solely comprise areas of pristine countryside. In fact, many green belt areas are used for industrial purposes, golf courses, or intense agricultural activities – which Keir Starmer refers to as ‘grey belt.’ This distinction is crucial, as it dispels the misconception that all green belt land is environmentally valuable and must be preserved at all costs.’

With this in mind, Labour have said that they have ruled out building on ‘genuine nature spots’ and will require developers to include improvements to existing green spaces in their plans.

Angela Rayner, deputy leader of the Labour Party, said grey belt land ‘should not be off limits while local people are kept off the housing ladder’, adding that much of the green belt ‘isn’t green, rolling hills, but poor-quality scrubland, mothballed on the outskirts of town’.

Image: Shutterstock 

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The new digital platform will provide landlords with resources to help them keep on top of property and tenant management, administration and service delivery.

The continued cost-of-living crisis has had major repercussions on the private rented sector. Squeezed budgets have meant people can’t afford to pay current rent prices and increased costs on certain resources have left landlords struggling. However, a new app, which was launched this month, could help to address the latter.

Created by RoomApp, the new Exempt Social Housing Excellence (ESHE) platform, is a one-stop service hub providing landlords with the ability to access a database that is comprised of all the information needed to stay on top of property management, without the hassle of having to afford the resources for and complete endless amounts of paperwork.  

The paperless task management system helps landlords to stay in-line with evidencing legal obligations, complying with service quality standards, actioning repair requests from tenants or staff recruitment and development.

Against this backdrop, the technology is also good for filtering out the bad landlords who attempt to rip tenants off by placing them in poorly kept homes. According to research from the Resolution Foundation, one in six young adults in the UK are living in dire conditions which is severely impacting on their physical and mental health.

Camarlo Richards, founder of ESHE, said: ‘There is a core body of ‘good landlords’ in the exempt supported housing arena who care deeply about their tenants and the quality of housing they provide.

‘However, ESHE was born of the unfortunate acknowledgment that there are unscrupulous landlords out there, defrauding the system of millions each year, often disregarding their safeguarding responsibilities, some even actively targeting vulnerable people.’

With this in mind, ESHE’s tenant application, RoomApp, is designed to help support vulnerably housed people and/or those who’re facing homelessness. The technology provides a function where individuals can search for suitable properties and manage their end-to-end tenancy.

Camarlo added: ‘ESHE is the quality assured gold standard. Easy and efficient for good landlords to use. It stops rogue landlords operating and in doing so, raises living standards, reduces support needs and costs while easing the pressure on our straining housing system.’

As well as helping the property sector, councils and NHS staff members have also expressed an interest in ESHE.

Image: Camarlo Richards

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