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The house price affordability crisis

“Solving the affordability crisis”

Now that our new government is well established, their primary focus should be on devolving planning and decision-making powers, including deciding residential planning applications, to town councils before the next General Election.“ says Peter Hendry, author of The House Price Solution.

To fully resolve this housing crisis requires the following reforms.
To begin, the planning system should be tilted away from its excessively stringent development control method and instead be moved towards a new, open and locally focused, rules-based zoning system, based on ‘types of user’.

I am saying towns and their associated hinterlands should zone all existing and future housing within their administrative areas into the following specific categories and document these within the current Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs). These criteria should all be enshrined within new and upgraded Neighbourhood Development Plans lasting at least for five years at a time.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing and adopting Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDPs). This page explains the essence of what to do to achieve this. For further explanations please see other posts on this web site.

Balanced demand and supply locally could be achieved for each individual town and village by having an Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plan (ENDP) fully adopted as being the document to refer to when making planning decisions throughout the validity of the ENDP. Below are the main classifications for use zoning within adopted NDPs.

Owner occupation: (by those working locally or retired)

Affordable to buy: (for those starting off in life and by those working locally)

Private rental: (by those working locally)

Social housing lettings: (by those working locally or retired)

Second homes: (for those not working locally)

Holiday lettings:
(If considered advantageous planning-wise, a mix of these user designations, which should be specific to each individual house, might even be allowed in the same street or location.)

It is becoming clear that all towns with a housing crisis like, for example, St Ives & Porthleven in Cornwall, The South Hams in Devon, Ilfracombe in North Devon (as screened on BBC Spotlight on 30th July 2024), as well as Frome in Somerset and Whitby in North Yorkshire, should canvass for fully devolved planning decision-making powers to be provided to local town councils up and down the whole country. 

The towns named above have been in the news lately as being unable to resolve the crisis in housing, endemic in their regions over several decades past, where local workers as well as the retired are concerned. All this despite more powers having been devolved to their county or regional authorities over past years. This strongly suggests a wholly different planning policy is now needed.

Shortcomings such as these ought to be tackled head on. It would seem that this is an issue needing to be raised at the very highest level and without delay. So, I’m including it here as well as referring it to my local MP. You should do the same too if you think there is a similar problem in your local area.
If you want to know what to ask them, ask why they aren’t changing the way houses are both planned for and marketed to finally resolve the poorly performing, over-priced and obdurate housing markets around the whole country?

Town Councils only have the current right to comment on planning applications within their area. They should instead be given the power to decide them. This would be an absolute game-changer.

It should be stressed that the success of the planning process going forward should involve local towns or districts having to draw-up more detailed and specific local Neighbourhood Plans to include use zones within such enhanced local plans whilst still getting these adopted by government.

To put the very early town and country planning acts into perspective, these were designed to bring final decisions on town planning matters under the umbrella of government control in times when the need to legislate during great wars was seen as being essential,

Since the end of the last World War over 70 years have passed and so some of us feel that we should, once again, have adequate say as to what should be built (and where) within our communities.

Though this is logical in democratic society, it would seem to require a ‘brave’ government to relax the degree of planning control they have had to enjoy during those times of armed conflict.

It is reasonable for that to have happened as the preferable outcome in the run up to war but it is a more democratic outcome to allow local communities to develop individualities and distinctiveness in the way they shape their local environment and their economy.

In peacetime (i.e. whilst our country is not at war with another), residential planning consents should therefore be delegated to all local town councils for them to determine, depending upon local housing need. Central government did not take such a hands-on approach . Surely it is high time these measures were devolved to town councils instead of most things being decided by regional authorities and/or The Planning Inspectorate..

This way, genuinely democratic decisions may be arrived at using local decision-makers whom are best able to understand what the current needs of the community are at any particular time.

The other primary change must be to improve the way in which houses are actually marketed, by using registered house agents instead of estate agents. This equally vital change is covered in detail under the article headed. The House Price Solution.

So, here on this web site is the full reasoning explaining what is needed to finally improve all the housing markets across the whole of Britain? If you follow the link below you will find yourself on that very page. Please enjoy this offering and by all means comment if you have thoughts of your own about this.

This site proposes changes to the whole way in which houses are marketed by agents as well as bringing in far more effective planning controls. 

For more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution – Part 1.

“Introducing The House Price Solution”

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Consulting Valuation Surveyor
Author of:– The House Price Solution

Please also note. Unless things change significantly along the lines explained, countless people will continue to experience considerable financial anxiety or pain so, please sign our petition.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

The cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

Your action in asking our government to debate this could help bring about all of these much needed changes.

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A one-page synopsis of ‘The House Price Solution’, especially for newcomers

Welcome to The House Price Solution. This web site is campaigning for a change to the new government’s policy on having Top Down housing targets.

The purpose of this website is to stimulate debate and help find, collectively, the best way to bring house prices back to within reach of a majority of those wishing and needing to buy (or indeed rent) housing for themselves and their families.

This is the alternative to simply trying to out-build housing demand, until prices reduce to lower levels; for that will never work!

The full reasoning of these unique proposals can be explained in interview by allowing these proposals and the methods they require, to be adequately explained and discussed.

This is a new and comprehensive planning and marketing solution which can resolve both the above problem and the house price crisis as well. I would ask that this is given due consideration by our new government.

The proposals set out on this website are future generational, based upon a detailed analysis of house price levels by the author as found to exist during historic and damaging economic turbulence in Britain.

The object of these proposals is to replace existing flawed sales and planning methods with new ones, designed to avoid the effects of unwanted future price escalation within all British housing markets. This would be the advantage of deploying The House Price Solution.

Having been in contact with my own MP about it, I am hoping for a referral of my alternative proposal to The Secretary of State at The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. I would like to generate some in-depth discourse on this important and earnest submission before very long. It must be emphasised The House Price Solution is not in any way simply an idealogical fix!

It is hoped that the Civil Service responsible for advising government on housing policy, together with the brave and considerate Labour government which has just been elected, will consider and fully examine these special new policy proposals for remedying the present housing crisis.

The first question to consider is, how can The House Price Solution resolve the housing crisis?

There are two aspects to answering this question. The first is about how to make all local housing markets across Britain work like free-market economic models.

This would involve replacing estate agency as we know it with a new, better and properly licensed service which I am calling Residential House Agents or (RHAs). This is the first radical change. These buyer and renter-advising agents would primarily work for buyers and renters instead of for sellers, as happens at present.

The job of these new Residential House Agents (RHAs) would be not only to sell or indeed let individual owner’s houses but more importantly would find and secure the houses which their contracted client(s) are seeking both for themselves and their families – whether such clients are wishing to buy or to rent.

Individual RHAs working with clients would need to have gained an approved new qualification showing their level of competence. The reason for this is that the existing estate agency service breaks the economic market rules and generally talks prices up. This skews all residential property marketplaces by over-valuing most of the individual houses and flats. This is a fundamental misrepresentation and is damaging all the housing marketplaces across Britain.

What is needed instead is a service that records all genuine offers (whether to buy or to rent), and immediately submits these to the relevant vendor (or the landlord if for rentals), for consideration. After the decision is made and one of the offers is accepted by the vendor or the landlord, the RHA handling this will arrange for a pre-worded lock-out agreement or contract with that vendor as well as with their legal adviser such that they all agree not to accept any other offer for the agreed period of time that it should take for the conveyancing to be concluded (or the tenancy agreement if its a letting). In essence a newly prescribed lock-out agreement.

Once the sale or letting is completed in this way, the RHA would collect their fee from the satisfied buyer or renter, via the solicitor dealing with completing the transaction (or from the landlord if appropriate). See the other articles on the website explaining this in more detail.

One other key advantage of introducing these proposals would be that there would no longer be a need for a Council Tax Revaluation, as this method of valuation would be superseded by the market valuation procedures set down in these new proposals. This, in itself, would save the government a great deal of money as well as civil servant time.

The second radical change, deals with the town and country planning rules relating to residential property. What it proposes is the substantial change necessary to make the best and most efficient use of all housing units, whether already built, or yet to be constructed.

A main reason for this is that housing is in great demand as well as in unprecedentedly short supply. As a result, each viable existing housing unit should be zoned within the local Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP), such that whenever that property becomes vacant (and/or changes hands), the appropriate NDP zoning for that house or flat must take effect. For example, if the house was previously used as a second home, but it has subsequently become zoned on the NDP for local housing use, then after the vacation of the property, the new use must comply with the current NDP zoning. Enforcement action could follow wherever this is not the case.

Clearly, because it is the local town council that draws up local NDPs, the best organisation to administer this would be that same one. I therefore propose that all residential planning decisions should be devolved to each local town council for them to determine this exclusively and in accordance with the NDP once adopted.

Demand and supply could easily be brought to balance within each individual town and village concerned by introducing adopted Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDPs). See ‘The House Price Affordability Crisis’ on the web site for more information.

Balanced demand and supply locally could be achieved for each individual town and village by having an Enhanced Neighbourhood Development Plans (ENDP) fully adopted as being the document to refer to when making planning decisions throughout the validity of the ENDP.

This would mean the existing arrangements for regional councils to decide such planning applications would no longer be needed, which is a third radical change, one designed to speed up planning decisions a great deal.

As a result, there would no longer be a need for government planning inspectors to deal with residential planning appeals centrally. In other words there would be no need for an appeal process for individual residential planning matters anymore. This would save inordinate amounts of time as well as great expense and bring much needed clarity, as to exactly which use designation each residential property should have, for the vital benefit of the town including any parishes’ within the local housing economy of course.

This site proposes changes to the whole way in which houses are marketed by agents as well as bringing in far more effective planning controls. 

For more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution – Part 1.

“Introducing The House Price Solution”

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Consulting Valuation Surveyor
Author of:– The House Price Solution

“Solving the affordability crisis”

Please also note. Unless things change significantly along the lines explained, countless people will continue to experience considerable financial anxiety or pain so, please sign our petition.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

The cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

Your action in asking our government to debate this could help bring about all of these much needed changes.

Posted on

The best way to solve the shortage of supply of available houses to rent or buy across the whole of Britain

There is a ‘middle way’ between central government trying to coerce local government into granting unwanted planning approvals for contentious residential housing developments and opposition governments becoming elected by saying they would bring back compulsory housing targets!

It is to allow local town councils to determine residential planning permissions and by so doing, manage and maintain the balance of their own local housing supply and demand.

To achieve this I am campaigning for a complete transfer of decision-making powers for the granting of residential planning approvals, which would give local town councils full responsibility to bring forward effective development plans and be able to grant planning approvals in accordance with these without interference by central government.

In other words the responsibility to balance the use of all residential property should be assigned to local town councils in order to meet existing and future demand for the right type of residential development within their area.

This would make such councils active in ensuring that new and existing residential property, within their jurisdiction, would allow for a user-spread which is fully able to accommodate future demand for housing within the local residential property pool under their control.

Enabling this would be enabling real town planning. If given this responsibility, each district and its local planning committees would be expected to balance the demands for each type of residential property user in their area, so that those requiring housing in its various forms should be able to obtain it.

In this way, each area would be empowered to succeed in providing housing for its own residents. This could result in all areas within the Britain becoming able to house its local inhabitants adequately.

What we need is ‘Local’ Democracy, ‘Local’ Accountability.

This proposal would work by completely replacing the current top-down residential planning policies, which are failing and demonstrably insufficient. I ask that this new proposal for root and branch change should be fully examined, scrutinised, debated and after all of that, be inaugurated.

This site proposes changes to the whole way in which houses are marketed by agents as well as bringing in far more effective planning controls. 

For more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution – Part 1.

“Introducing The House Price Solution”

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Consulting Valuation Surveyor
Author of:– The House Price Solution

“Solving the affordability crisis”

Please also note. Unless things change significantly along the lines explained, countless people will continue to experience considerable financial anxiety or pain so, please sign our petition.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

The cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

Your action in asking our government to debate this could help bring about all of these much needed changes.

This is a no nonsense solution for housing, by balancing demand and supply in each separate local area within Britain.

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The notion that we can build our way out of The Housing Affordability Crisis is ill-conceived, inappropriate and remains untested.

Politics is sub-optimal at present, especially in regard to housing, which is the last thing people want.
Here’s why:

The notion that we can build our way out of the Housing Affordability Crisis is ill-conceived, inappropriate and remains untested.

When you consider that in this country, the total existing number of dwellings is probably well in excess of 30 Million AND …

If you accept that the maximum possible number of new dwellings that could be built in any one year these days is say 250,000, then you must deduce that the percentage of extra dwellings that could in practice be added to the existing housing stock in each year can only be a single digit number of percentage increase in any given year!

Assuming that you understand the economic theory behind house prices, to achieve a material change in such price levels by increasing the overall supply of dwellings, one would have to build in excess of 10%, more dwellings to begin with. If not that number, the effect of pursuing such a policy would be negligible, in actual practice.

In conclusion therefore, you would need upwards of two to three Million new dwellings to come onto the housing market, to even begin to affect house prices sufficiently to bring them down to more affordable levels by these means alone.

Also, as population growth continues, more and further residential development shall be necessary, even though this would be at the expense of the loss of agricultural and amenity land and would further damage our environment in the process.

The mathematical explanation:
Here’s the mathematical proof of why the current policy of building only a third of a million new houses each year, cannot be expected to have the effect of lowering the level of house prices currently prevailing in housing marketplaces all across the United Kingdom.

As explained, the expected proportion (in valuation terms) to have any material affect on current house prices to even begin to take place, would be an increase in the stock of housing of approximately 10% at least initially.

Formula 1:
Calculating the minimum number of dwellings that would be initially required to be added to the existing housing stock, to achieve a 10% increase in stock – i.e. in the first year?

Say the total number of existing houses is (conservatively estimated) at 25 Million.

The original number of houses + 10% = 27,500,000 . This would be the total number required. The total number – original number = number of extra houses required.

27,500,000 – 25,000,000 = 2,500,000 the number of extra houses required. This is far in excess (i.e. approaching ten times the number that our government are expecting to be building i.e. 250,000 on an annual basis) !!

Formula 2:
Calculating the actual percentage, of dwellings which would be added to the existing housing stock, if only say 250,000 additional dwellings were to be added in the first year?

New number – orig. number
——————————————- . X 100 = %
orig. number.

25,250,000 – 25,000,000
——————————————- . X 100 = 1% only.
25,000,000

Formula 3:
Calculating the actual percentage, of dwellings required to be added to the existing housing stock, if supposing as much as 400,000 additional dwellings were to be added – for comparison purposes.
(Note the orig. number of housing stock would increase in each subsequent year.)

New number – orig. number
——————————————- . X 100 = %
orig. number.

25,400,000 – 25,000,000
——————————————- . X 100 = 1.6% only.
25,000,000

Both formulas 2 & 3 disclose the very significant shortfall of sufficient houses able to be added, to gain anything like the 10% minimum increase necessary, as calculated using formula 1, to start bringing house prices down significantly enough for them to be adequately affordable to a majority of current-day potential buyers.

This shortfall is far too large to even contemplate let alone justify a course of action such as the one currently being suggested, in order to attempt to bring house prices down over the relatively short term. The actual affect on price levels themselves would be both marginal and insignificant at best!

Further explanation regarding the proposed/revised selling process advocated under The House Price Solution:
In full response to the ‘lack of supply’ pontificators, whom are rather prevalent currently, the whole rationale or philosophy behind my carefully considered solution for restoring the housing markets around Britain to good health, embraces the wisdoms of bygone days. How so? There was a time when latin was in general parlance and the words: “Caveat Emptor” were in frequent use. The meaning of this should never have been forgotten.

This used to be an express warning which was applied especially where property or real estate was concerned. The words of the warning mean: ‘Let the buyer beware – unless they are covered by the seller’s warranty in terms of quality and worth’. The meaning of this simple latin saying amply describes why the current failures are occurring, manifesting within all housing markets up and down our still great country. 

We should remember this because in actual fact it is the one thing which is required, in order to restore and correct the damaging anomalies surrounding today’s accelerating house prices. As explained, these anomalies arise from our having departed from and forgotten what were previously well-known and established wisdoms, to be relied upon whenever undertaking commercial transactions such as those involving the buying of houses for family use.

The problem of unaffordable house prices today simply isn’t a supply-side matter at all. It is a price-side problem not a supply-side one. A-level students studying economics ought to know this! Once this is understood, the requisite changes to the way in which our housing markets operate across the whole country may be realised so that they may, once again become normality. Central government necessarily would need to take a lead in resolving this current-day house price crisis of course.

In the local area where I live for example, there are clearly more than a sufficient number of houses that certainly could be used to satisfy both present and future demand for residential housing but they are not coming onto the market. Instead they are being used for non-residential uses. It is this that needs addressing most urgently, not the headlong rush to build more houses to satisfy a purely notional lack of supply when in fact, there is a more than adequate supply of suitable property both in our locality and in plenty of other locations all over the place!

Please consider what is being explained here and raise any relevant questions on this for public scrutiny and discussion.

So, here on this web site is the full reasoning explaining what is needed to finally improve all the housing markets across the whole of Britain? If you follow the link below you will find yourself on that very page. Please enjoy this offering and by all means comment if you have thoughts of your own about this.

This site proposes changes to the whole way in which houses are marketed by agents as well as bringing in far more effective planning controls. 

For more information on the necessary house marketing changes, go to:

The House Price Solution – Part 1.

“Introducing The House Price Solution”

Posted by: Peter Hendry, Consulting Valuation Surveyor
Author of:– The House Price Solution

Please also note. Unless things change significantly along the lines explained, countless people will continue to experience considerable financial anxiety or pain so, please sign our petition.
The link below opens this is in a new tab for you to look at.

The cost-effective way to stabilise housing affordability across the whole of Britain

Your action in asking our government to debate this could help bring about all of these much needed changes.

I invite questions and comments regarding this complete new way to restore all housing markets up and down the country, to return appropriate operational housing market conditions once again.
With better prospects for all wishing and needing to move house at any particular time I propose this as being the best and only practical solution to the house price crisis.
Market economics would be substantially improved using these newly explained techniques.