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Tag: house builders

Half-term report for the housing market 2011 – fragile and flatlining

Half-term report for the housing market 2011 – fragile and flatlining

The two best words to sum up the picture that emerges from the latest housing market data would probably be fragile and flatlining. The surveys may have slight differences, but they all point to a market in a state of uneasy equilibrium. So, with a steady flow of disappointing economic data of late, this leaves wide open the question of whether the market has the resilience to avoid being tipped again into decline. The graph probably shows you all you…

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Spiralling rents pose a tough question for Shapps: Where will the new homes come from?

Spiralling rents pose a tough question for Shapps: Where will the new homes come from?

The latest survey of the residential rental market by the surveyors’ body RICS is likely to wind up the pressure on the housing minister Grant Shapps to promote more house building. The survey suggests that rents are rising ever faster, driven by rising demand in a market where supply is constrained, as the graph taken from the RICS survey shows.

Speeding up public land sales by itself will not boost house building

Speeding up public land sales by itself will not boost house building

The Government today announced its plan to release public land with the aim of building 100,000 new homes. In reality the news, if that is what it is, has been dribbling out for some while. Few were opposing the policy of releasing swathes of redundant public land for housing and other development. The previous administration was keen to release land too. But politicians like a good headline. And a sound bite like “I am today announcing plans that will lead…

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Do the house building figures really show recovery? Well not really

Do the house building figures really show recovery? Well not really

The latest house building statistics published yesterday tell us practically nothing about the prospects for the industry over the year ahead, other than things don’t appear to be getting worse and that we are still a huge distance from where we were three or four years ago. Why then does our housing minister Grant Shapps feel the need to pump up the value of what really are still very flaccid figures for housing starts? He tweeted: “These better house building stats…

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Little comfort for house sellers in latest market data and none for those wanting more homes built

Little comfort for house sellers in latest market data and none for those wanting more homes built

For those hypersensitive to twitches in the housing market the latest batch of data will not be comforting. Today we see the housing survey results for April from the surveyors’ body RICS, which its economists interpret as revealing a broad-based improvement, albeit within a market that remains fragile.

Housing market: more stable but still fragile

Housing market: more stable but still fragile

House prices are showing signs of greater stability after the falls in the second half of last year. Today Hometrack released figures showing prices in March were just 0.1% down while Nationwide released a figure of plus 0.5%. But the big question on everyone’s mind is where to from here for the market as homebuyers and sellers adjust to the squeeze within the economy. And among construction folk what does this all mean for house building.

House building recovery stalls and a further fall can’t be ruled out

House building recovery stalls and a further fall can’t be ruled out

There is no way that you can look at the latest set of house building figures for England in the third quarter of this year and suggest they look good. Yes it is true that private sector housing completions were up for the second consecutive quarter as the press release points out, but they were lower by 4% than in the same quarter a year ago. Furthermore, the completions we see in the third quarter represent a view taken by…

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Why the spending review might prove a turning onto the road to Nirvana for house builders

Why the spending review might prove a turning onto the road to Nirvana for house builders

What do the cuts in the spending review mean for house builders? Who really knows? But having tried to piece together what the implications of the Chancellor’s axe wielding are for housing, house builders, housing associations and contractors who build homes, I can’t help thinking what some might regard as the unthinkable. I may be deluded or befuddled by the blur of jumbled numbers, but far from being bad news, I think there is a possibility that things might pan…

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What house price falls might mean for future housing construction

What house price falls might mean for future housing construction

The Halifax index out today will provide a nasty kick in the stomach for those businesses reliant on stable or rising house prices to prosper. The monthly fall of 3.6% was the biggest I could find on the historic data spreadsheet that Lloyds Banking Group provides that goes back to the start of 1983. The previous worst monthly fall was 3.0% in September 1992. And however much we are advised to look at the quarterly figure and how ever much…

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