Thursday, Aug 13, 2009
NAEA's latest cry for "BTL ministerial assistance"
Mortgagestrategy: Buy-to-let will plug housing gap, says NAEA
Landlords will be responsible for ensuring “Britain has a roof over its head” in the wake of dwindling housing supply, claims the National Association of Estate Agents. The NAEA says that with a lack of homes available to meet demand the private rental sector will end up stepping in to pick up the slack. Stewart Lilly, chair of the Planning, New Homes & Rural group for the NAEA, says: “The government will end up relying on buy-to-let investors to provide property for rental and ensure that Britain has a roof over its head.
Posted by jack c @ 01:31 PM (1206 views) Add Comment
14 Comments
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1. jack c said...
Similar article www.mortgagesolutions-online.com/mortgage-solutions/news/1529122/government-pressure-lenders-lend-naea
Government must pressure lenders to lend: NAEA
Mortgage Solutions | 13 Aug 2009 | 11:24
Stephen Quigley
The government must pressure lenders to lend and free the market from its heavy constraints, according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA).
While the trade body welcomed guidance from the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) that up to 5% more homes will need to be built annually to meet supply, it warned the population will only take advantage of this if the private rental sector met demand for houses.
Stewart Lilly, chair of the planning, new homes and rural group for the NAEA, said the Government will end up relying on buy-to-let investors to provide property for rental and ensure that Britain has a roof over its head.
He commented: "But to make this happen, the buy-to-let market needs assistance from the banks and it will only be ministerial pressure that will make that happen. It is time for the Government to make those vast investments in the banks pay by exerting some pressure on lenders to free up the market from the heavy constraints it is labouring under."
Lilly said the planning decisions by local authorities' handicaps the supply of new homes.
In 2008 the number of new dwellings built was the lowest ever on record, and these planning decisions contribute to the stagnation of the economy, he said.
He added: "The planning policies of high density developments introduced by the Government are not working, and attempts to streamline the planning system have led to an increase in regulations for developers, and so more delays are occurring in these projects. Banks also need to start lending to developers again for such schemes to get off the ground. Until the Government and the banks face up to these challenges, the prospects for house building will not improve
2. mark wadsworth said...
They are seriously mentally ill.
Surely it's bricklayers and so on who put rooves over our heads? And we've enough houses anyway - there just allocated very unevenly. If we implemented a property value tax or land value tax (and used it to replace a shedload of other taxes, of course) then people would shuffle up or down a bit and everbody would be happy, even if we didn't build another house for ten years.
Think about it, of all the people who are renting, how many are renting somewhere that is far too big or expensive for them? Very few (let's ignore social housing for these purposes). So if everybody is part-owning and part-renting their own home, so there'd be a real incentive to "right-size".
3. paul said...
The NAEA was happy to let the market decide what price people should pay for a roof over their heads until a couple of years ago when house prices started tumbling.
4. jack c said...
Yep it looks like the free market applies when prices rise rapidly but when prices fall the NAEA seeks Gov intervention - they should be carted off to the Tower the lot of them.
5. techieman said...
“But to make this happen, the buy-to-let market needs assistance from the banks and it will only be ministerial pressure that will make that happen."
Aha of course! nope the buy to let market needs to supply its product at a price which is consistent with the free market. Yes they could replace council rents and so shouldnt they be more or less in line with those rents? Council properties were built to actually house people (size and amenity wise) not with the prime aim of being unsuitable rabbit hutch gambling chips.
If the BTL properties are foreclosed then thats just a brutal automatic adjustment to price. The slack gets taken up (new purchaser at auction) and the business provides a better yeild and is more viable at the (clearly correct) lower prices.
Now Build to let - that may be another story ;-).
6. 51ck-6-51x said...
techieman - good point.
- If we did have a shortage of housing build-to-let would have been the business to be in ( more margin ) - but we didn't, so it was the conversion of housing supply from the sales market to the rental market that took off, i.e. buy-to-let ( encouraging house builder to increase sales market supply anyway ). One good thing about buy-to-let is that an increase in rental properties creates a more flexible labour market ( moving between rental accommodations has far less friction than moving between owned accommodations ) - however the same would be true of build-to-let. The buy-to-let brigade will often say how they are a good thing for society for reasons such as this, but this nullifies such arguments.
7. Neil B said...
What a load of cr@p.... I've never heard of a BTL landlord building a property
8. shining wit said...
Utter butter ollocks....
I wonder how many of our "buy-2-regret" landlords are prepared to take housing benefit......Or throw someone out of their property who starts claiming it, and let us not forget the "ceiling" councils put on housing benefit as they have to budget for housing benefit on a local level and only receive part of this to balance the books?
It's going to by nigh on imposssible for councils to cover the costs of unemployment with their services in demand more than ever to cater for 3+million on the dole (and their dependents receiving extra help, school diners, uniforms, free dental care etc) wothout drastic cuts or massive council tax bill hikes....
Oh dear!
9. mander said...
NAEA should not make such statements that are against buyers interest and pro buy to let. It has been proved that but to let so far have not contributed to this economy because they are buying existing family homes in order to create a housing shortage and not building new homes in order to create jobs. Tenants working hard to pay the rent in order to build for the landlord tax free equity are the ones who contributed to the economy in real terms and therefore 3.9 million houses available for rent should have been owned by the tenants already.
10. greenshootsandleaves said...
And how about the Government also putting pressure on bookmakers to reimburse the punters who backed the favourite in the 3.40 at Kempton Park? (Well, it's worth a try.)
11. bystander said...
"the trade body welcomed guidance from the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) that up to 5% more homes will need to be built annually to meet supply"@JackC at 1. I am wondering whether this 5% more homes is based upon the "still lower than necessary to meet housing needs", 200,000 being built during the boom or 5% more than the 50-100,000 new homes being built now, if it is the former then they are fools, and if it is the latter they are now admitting to being lying fools. I agree with many on this site who have stated many, many times before, thatt it is not supply failing to meet demand, but demand for decent, well priced, well built housing not being met.
12. will said...
Vested Interest website -
13. mr g said...
I'll show my bare a*se in front of Leeds town hall if landlords are ever responsible enough for ensuring “Britain has a roof over its head”
Altruism is not a word that a landlord would understand.
14. down wave said...
There was a time when one could sell one's house, bank the money and pay the rent out of the interest. Not any more. Then again, who wants to risk having a large sum of cash in the banks? In the south west there is glut of residentials (2nd homes mainly) up for letting. Very few can afford them as those in work do not earn sufficient to cover the rents asked and feed themselves at the same time. The south west as been ravaged by job losses, bankruptcies and retail closures.