Chancellor George Osbourne has announced plans for a £250m fund for first-time buyers under a shared-equity scheme to help 10,000 families and an extension of the Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI), providing help towards interest payments for homeowners out of work, and a change in stamp duty.
Alan Waxman, CEO and founder of Landmass who has been involved in the supply, financing, development and design of residential properties for over a decade with a focus on maximising space planning, provides us with his insight on the effects this will have in London;
"The pressure is not just concentrated in the first time buyers’ market; homes which are designed and developed to a high standard are being actively sought after by buyers right across the spectrum and there simply aren’t enough residential buildings to cater for the demand. To add to the problem, growing instability around the world in recent years has seen London become widely positioned as a “safe” bolt hole by investors.”
The latest GLA Intelligence Updates (February, 2011) indicate that by 2031, the population of London is expected to increase by 12 per cent with households expected to increase by 18 per cent, effectively 579 thousand.
While registrations to build new homes rose by 4,500 between October and December 2010, new mortgage approvals remain very low, having fallen over the course of 2010 (Greater London Authority London housing market report, Quarter 4 2010).
Alan Waxman concludes,
“Up until now, the demand for purpose built property has simply not kept up with the current availability in the housing market as too many commercial spaces have remained unused.”
