“The number of new homes still falls short of the volume needed to meet the UK’s chronic housing shortage. Additionally, when looking at the data over an extended period of time – it is clear that quarterly housing starts remain well below pre-financial crash years1. The number of housing completions is at its lowest since Q1 2016, despite ongoing policy pledges to mend what the government has itself described as the ‘broken housing market’.
“To have any hope of rebalancing the relationship between housing supply and demand, the government must do more to instil confidence in the new build sector. There has been a commitment to improve access to mortgage finance, and IMLA’s data suggests that first-time buyers are faring better than any other customer group in the market. Nine in ten applicants (90%) via intermediaries secured a mortgage offer in the first quarter of 2018, suggesting that a shortage of products is not the issue.
“However, what is needed are measures to support the full housing spectrum, not just first-time buyers. We’re faced with an increasingly illiquid market, with homeowners now only moving once every 19.2 years, compared with every 7.4 years in 1988,2 as price inflation and a lack of suitable options mean many ‘steppers’ struggle to find homes to meet their changing needs, such as a growing family or getting older.
“This lack of new homes coming onto the market organically means the new build sector must continue to be supported. As a starting point, we need clarity over the next phase of policies once the current Help to Buy scheme comes to an end in 2021.”
[1] IMLA 2017 white paper: ‘Keeping Britain building’
[2] IMLA 2018 white paper: ‘The New Normal’
Notes to Editors
About IMLA
The Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association (IMLA) is the trade association that represents mortgage lenders who lend to UK consumers and businesses via the broker channel. Its membership of 52 banks, building societies and specialist lenders include 18 of the 20 largest UK mortgage lenders (measured by gross lending) and account for about 90% of mortgage lending (91.6% of balances and 92.8% of gross lending).
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