Brokers and British homeowners have repeated calls for the UK government to do more to tackle the growing housing crisis in the country.
According to Market Financial Solutions, the lack of affordable housing is one of the most pressing social issues in the UK right now.
In a poll of 1,323 UK households, commissioned by MFS, just 21 per cent of UK adults said they thought the government was doing enough to combat housing crisis.
A significant majority (69 per cent) stated that the lack of affordable housing was one of the most pressing social issues in the UK.
Supporting those with mortgages and encouraging more housebuilding ought be at the top of the government’s to-do list.Paresh Raja, MFSParesh Raja, chief executive of MFS, said: "The housing crisis is a major issue in the UK, and our research shows that there is a lack of confidence among homeowners and homebuyers that the government is addressing it.
"This is likely, in part, a reflection of the turbulence Westminster has experienced in the last year, with changes of leadership bringing about new priorities."
Indeed, there have been six housing ministers since December 2021, when the base rate stood at 0.1 per cent.
Since then, the BBR has risen to 4.5 per cent in May this year, and mortgage lenders have pulled more than 700 products amid the rate increases.
Historic lack
Yet there is still no sign the government is committed to promises made in the wake of the 2004 Barker Review, which outlined how woefully inadequate the UK's housebuilding progress had become.
As previously reported by FTAdviser, social housebuilding in the UK has tailed off significantly since the late 1970s and early 1980s.
For example, in 1970, local authorities build 179,280 homes, compared with 174,350 by private enterprises and 8,590 by the housing association.
The profit of constructing a property and selling it is zero.IFS study 2015But former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's right to buy policy in 1980 - which got a new lease of life in 2012 under David Cameron's coalition government - created a significant drop in local authority constructions.
As a podcast by FTAdviser revealed in 2022, brokers, lenders and landlords alike have highlighted various inefficiencies in housing policy affecting first-time buyers across the UK.
According to an economic analysis in 2015 by the Institute of Fiscal Studies into the original right-to-buy scheme, by the mid-2000s, around 2.8mn council houses had been sold in the UK.
That same 33-page document - The right to buy public housing in Britain: a welfare analysis - stated: "The private housing market is competitive. The profit of constructing a property and selling it is zero."
Broken promises
Moreover, recent pledges to do more seem to have fallen by the wayside, or not been adopted quickly enough for British brokers and homeowners.
For example, in February 2022, the government outlined 12 missions in its 'Levelling Up' strategy.
Some recommendations aimed to boost the number of first-time buyers across the UK, while others will support landlords and house builders.
Among the pledges, the government announced:
- All homes in the Private Rented Sector will have to meet a minimum standard - the Decent Homes Standard.
- Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions will further be abolished.
- Consultation on introducing a landlords register.
- £1.5bn Levelling Up Home Building Fund being launched, which will provide loans to small-to-medium-sized enterprises.
- Regeneration areas - the government will support 20 of our towns and city centres, starting off with Wolverhampton and Sheffield, undertaking ambitious, King’s Cross-style regeneration projects.
But at the time, Ross Boyd, founder of the always-on mortgage comparison platform, Dashly.com, said: "Successive governments have talked the talk but very few, if any, have walked the walk when it comes to building homes, which is the easiest way to help more first-time buyers onto the ladder.
"It's a conundrum that no government, incomprehensibly, has been able to crack."
And by December 2022, the levelling up secretary Michael Gove rowed back on the government's promise to build 300,000 new homes.
Raja added: "With interest rates rising rapidly in the last 18 months, the study clearly highlights that some homeowners feel left behind, so supporting those with mortgages and encouraging more housebuilding ought be at the top of the government’s to-do list."
