ROOF Blog

Shelter has published a report promoting different ways to increase the development of affordable housing. A range of contributors cover a number of subjects including how to attract development finance to the industry, flexible tenure and the private rented sector.

The government is likely to break its promise to build 70,000 affordable homes a year by 2010-11 according to its own figures. A Guardian analysis of this week’s pledge to build more affordable housing indicates that the government will miss its target by at least 13,550 a year; while only 13,450 of the 56,500 new homes built a year will be council housing, down from 45,000 out of the original 70,000 planned. Figures also show that despite the government building fewer homes the programme will cost more money.

Details of Gordon Brown’s plan to boost social housing were revealed in the House of Commons yesterday. He announced he would pump £2.1 billion into building affordable housing, including an extra 20,000 homes to be built in the next two years on top of the 90,000 already in the pipeline. He said he would triple the £600 million announced in the Budget to cover new council and housing association homes – with half the extra £1.5 billion coming from the Communities and Local Government budget and the other half redirected from other government departments including transport, health and schools.

Public confidence in the housing market is higher than at any point since September 2007 and the Northern Rock bail-out, a survey from propertyfinder.com found. Around 60 per cent of respondents thought house prices would rise by May 2010, while 32.5 per cent thought prices would fall and a further 8.5 per cent said that prices would be unchanged in 12 months’ time. However, 0.7 per cent of first-time buyers expected prices to grow in the next 12 months, and only 9 per cent though mortgage are affordable. 

Research by the Bank of Scotland has found the recent falls in property values has been good for key public sector workers. The survey found that Scotland was one of the most affordable areas in the UK, and workers such as teachers and police officers could now afford to buy in 39 per cent of Scottish towns, up from 15 per cent in 2007.

Despite falling house prices research from Circle Anglia has found that a third of Britons believe that home ownership is still out of reach to them. People living in the South West are the most pessimistic with 46 per cent saying they will not be able to own a house and 42 per cent in Wales feeling the same way. London had the lowest figure with only one in five worrying they will never be able to afford their own place.

More than 100,000 young adults will leave rural towns and villages in England in the next three years due to a shortage in affordable houses research by the National Housing Federation (NHF) has found. It estimated 103,000 people aged 24 to 35 will migrate out of rural places to urban locations by 2012, because they cannot afford to live there. Around 100,000 new affordable homes are needed to be built to meet demand in rural areas in the next 10 years. The Federation is launching a new campaign today aimed at tackling the housing crisis in the countryside.

The lack of mortgage finance is widening the wealth gap between rich and poor and creating a more polarised society, research by the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU). The body says that a continuing affordability problem was making children of affluent owners richer still and the poorest even more disadvantaged – the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population has seen home values rise at more than three times the rate of the poorest 10 per cent, and the impact will continue for generations. Other consequences of the lack of housing affordability include poorer health, unemployment and a housing market prone to boom and bust.

Housing for first-time buyers is at its most affordable for more than six years, according to a survey. The Halifax affordability review found that house price to average earnings ratio has declined more than 25 per cent from its peak of 5.84 in July 2007 to 4.34 in March this year. The proportion of disposable earnings spent on mortgage payments has also fallen significantly, from a peak of 48 per cent in 2007 to 31 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, while the proportion of local authorities where housing is affordable for a first-time buyers has more than trebled since 2007 – up to 21 per cent from 6 per cent in the third quarter 2007.

The Homes and Communities Agency has invested in a community land trust scheme for the first time since its launch last year. The scheme, to which the HCA has contributed £212,000 of the £650,000 development costs, will build four affordable homes on the grounds of a property on Holy Island in Northumberland.