Posts

Posted on

Why are house prices still rising despite the downturn?

On the thorny subject of house prices, what we have right now are house prices still rising despite the economic downturn which is following the Covid 19 pandemic.

Why is this?
The reasons are actually straightforward but the current upward trajectory is not good news for those who need financial help to become home-owners in the future.

Research from Savills released in March 2021, estimates that the UK’s housing stock became worth £7.56 trillion – more than four times the value of the FTSE 100 index on the London Stock Exchange. These are seriously head-turning economic statistics!

What is particularly interesting, are the recent stats which explain that the value of mortgaged owner-occupied homes currently is only about £2.5 trillion, whereas there is £5.0 trillion worth of UK property which is owned completely mortgage-free. In other words this is twice as much as the value of today’s homes being purchased with a mortgage.

This would suggest that the main driver of the present government’s policy, is to continue to encourage capital growth in the housing sector. Such capital value increases obviously favour those who already have substantial property assets however, of course, the converse must therefore be true. These same policies can thus only hinder first-time buyers’ ability to become owners, as their purchasing ability is dependent upon and geared to earnings not capital values.

Polly Neate, the CEO of Shelter, is reported to be saying there is a “desperate shortage” of actually affordable homes for people on low incomes.

It’s simply no good putting up with what there is, or just continuing in exactly the same way as before.
We all have to change for the better. We should do this by treating first time buyers just the way we would like to be treated ourselves, even if we own houses outright. Houses are roofs over peoples’ heads rather than capital assets expected to appreciate in value before all else!

The House Price Solution has come up with the best possible new policy for the whole of the housing sector and for stabilising house prices within it.

In a nutshell the new policy is this:
Firstly, Neighbourhood Development Plans (or NDPs), which are readily available planning tools, should be adopted across the whole country and they ought to include similar purchasing restrictions to those which have more recently been enshrined in the St Ives, Cornwall Area NDP, the H2 policies.

These are to allow local earners a better chance to become local owners and to buy (rather than continue to rent) their principal residences.
As long as there are numbers of local earners who are not becoming mortgagor/owners, these people ought to be considered in preference to those simply having greater wealth and wishing to move to a new location of their choice.

The effect of this policy would be to help retain local communities functionally intact.
The alternative, which we have seen all too much of recently, is allowing whole areas to become ghost towns, owned by richer buyers from further afield. Allowing this destroys local communities of course.

One may easily understand that the present property-owning statistics demonstrate that a new policy is needed if we are to protect local individuality and preserve communities from societal desecration i.e. suffer the same fate that has befallen high streets up and down the country having become clones of one another lacking individuality over time. Specifically, I mean that we should save the character and cohesion of localities, from outside influences such as from those simply hoping to buy into a location just to gain an additional property investment for themselves.

BUT, something more than this is required if we are to stabilise the accelerating rise in house-prices and instead make way for a fairer and more inclusive house-price environment.
What is also required is a much better way to determine house prices themselves and it is this idea which I now put forward, naming it The House Price Solution.

In essence it is all about how to market houses in a way that can balance-out the different offers from competing buyers fairly and more equitably, resulting in a better marketplace for all those wishing to buy their next homes to live in.
It involves changing the way in which houses have traditionally been sold using vendor-led estate agency, to having new buyer-orientated agencies instead. Many of those who are employed in vendor-led estate agency practices currently could fairly easily get re-trained and become registered as buyer-advising agents.

These agents would handle incoming offers in a very different way by acting for and liaising with the different buyers. Sellers would be less able to influence the prices that are achieved because offers would be received directly from the buyers competing with one another, to the relevant buyers’ agents. These offers would be passed to the appropriate vendors by their own buying agents and this would allow house prices themselves to stabilise across the various different regions of the country. The mechanism by which this could happen would be by all offers becoming primarily dependent upon local buyers’ offer-price levels.

Only houses which are exempt from the H2 residence restrictions would be available for purchase by wealthier buyers from the rest of the country, these being outside the scope of these policies.

The above would help the success rate of individual housing transactions themselves, causing a general improvement in the number of house sales able to be made.

In peacetime (i.e. whilst our country is not at war with another), residential planning consents should be delegated to all local town or parish councils for them to determine, depending upon local housing need.

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 different local housing markets could be brought to balance and price levels better able to reflect local demand for housing, more appropriately.

The other necessary change would involve making housing markets operate more efficiently than currently happens, by requiring estate agents to work for buyers rather than being able to work for both buyers and sellers as happens currently.

As a retired residential property valuer I remain convinced that if democratically elected local councillors were to be granted full authority to decide local residential planning applications, the effect of this could resolve the whole housing crisis.

Decisions made by such elected representatives would not be based upon NIMBYism ‘Not In My Back Yard’; quite the contrary!

Instead it would be a question of ‘IN My Back Yard’, as these councillors would be representing the wishes and needs of the local community – not simply trying to resist necessary change!

There could be no finer outcome than this, especially where residential property is concerned, because with this solution these councillors could work to actually resolve the housing crisis which we are now all being affected by, particularly owing to its increasing severity.

As explained, the goal of preserving local communities by providing sufficient and affordable homes up and down the country, whilst still allowing a smaller number of the wealthier buyers to integrate, could be achieved. Better price stability within all UK housing markets also would be the clear result.

Resource links:
Savills:

https://www.twindig.com/market-views/houselungo-210321#slice

Shelter’s impact and activities:

https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/our_impact

What do you think about this idea for drastically improving the operation of all housing markets potentially across the whole of Britain?

Constructive comments are very much welcomed.

Posted on

How much would you need to save a month to buy a house within 10 years?

Well in theory right now, if you were to make contributions of £200 a month into a stocks and shares Isa, (i.e. put aside earnings of £2,400 p.a.) and you aimed for a realistic yearly return of 4pc after fees, you’d reach your goal of £40,000 in nine years.
If your partner did the same, this could be £80,000.

In addition, if house prices were to fall over the same period, you could suddenly find yourself just about poised and ready to buy a place to start owner occupation in.
Unfortunately, there are quite a few ‘ifs’ in this scenario aren’t there.

The main obstacle to achieving such a dream for an increasing number of aspiring buyers is house prices themselves which, even at the lower end of the house-ownership spectrum, are out of reach for many would-be owner occupiers. This obstacle could however be removed using relatively straightforward improvements in the way that residential properties are marketed.

The present ‘government’ idea of trying to get prices to start reducing is to build many more housing units.
Unfortunately, this idea is fundamentally flawed. The reason is the effect of doing this would be marginal on price. Why?
Because unless upwards of 10% of the total number of existing houses in the system were to be constructed, little or no effect on house-prices themselves would actually be felt.

If you do the maths it becomes clear that it would be impossible to build enough new houses, even over a full ten-year stretch. The calculation tells you it would take building in excess of ten times the number of new units currently able to be built each and every year for at least the next ten years!

By deduction therefore, instead of attempting to do the impossible it would be better to look at the current methods of marketing all residential properties and change that. The sales and marketing of residential property the one thing that is highly inefficient, old fashioned and in need of significant improvement. This is the key to achieving the desired result – greater owner-occupation.

Reform the way privately owned residential properties or houses are bought and sold and you will make the process open, fair, and efficient.

Doing this would bring the prices of starter homes back within the reach of first-time buyers and they would no longer have to borrow the increasingly ridiculous amounts which are currently stopping the majority of those wishing to become owner-occupiers to do so.

What do you think about this idea for drastically improving the operation of all housing markets potentially across the whole of Britain?

Constructive comments are very much welcomed.

Posted on

Will house prices ever stop rising faster than inflation?

I have worked as a Chartered Surveyor in the property sector from the 70s to the 90’s. During this time I have seen the relentless upwards direction of travel of house prices as related to true affordability, based on general earnings, first hand.

The golden dream of becoming a home owner by purchasing using mortgage borrowing repayable over the next 25 years, was something that was every young family’s ultimate ambition at one time. This has morphed into a nightmare recently. Why?

First of all, landowners have increasingly scooped-up increasing gains on the value of the land involved – by relying on the increased amounts to be borrowed by both first-time buyers and others further up the property chains.

Secondly, the banking and finance sectors have hijacked most of the profit remaining to be found and taken a big slice of it for themselves. In other words those institutions lending capital on mortgages have annexed a greater and greater share of the profits by doing what they think they are supposed to be doing – i.e. advancing increasingly large amounts of finance. More recently, they are now even prepared to increase the mortgage term length beyond the original 25 year repayment period, moving towards 30 years or more, which is highly questionable.

Simultaneously, interest rates, which have dropped to extremely low levels at the moment are enabling buyers to over extend themselves using loans they should not be being advised to take out.

The super-rich, on the other hand, are able to utilise the same unrestricted availability of mortgage finance to outbid the rest, using the collateral they already possess. The difference between the two positions is stark.

Shared ownership schemes (part rent part buy) have begun to appear which further decrease the actual dream of owning a whole building and the plot it is built on, in one’s lifetime.

House prices are being talked-up increasingly by estate agents whose primary interest above all else is to make the sale at the best price possible.

Employment is becoming more uncertain with flexible working hours making earnings unpredictable.

The actual cost of living is going up whilst basic wages are not keeping pace.

The housing market’s core buy-prices are further adjusting to match the described ‘loosening’ parameters. This has tended to happen in the past but the graph is exponential and it is set to continue in the relatively near future because house prices themselves are pegged in a practically unregulated market. In such a heady market, those who will have over extended themselves will, as a result, suddenly find they have a big financial problem.

The more wary amongst potential first-time buyers, are understandably holding back.
Apart from being wary, the main reason for this is that asking price levels of ‘so-called’ affordable housing today, are no longer truly affordable to them.

The only solution to this pernicious problem:- is to lower the buy-in prices of housing for all owner occupation.

How? That is the question?

The answer, as provided by those in the financial sector, is to offer to build more houses to increase the supply so that prices will finally and in theory reduce!

The main flaw in this argument is that it will take many years worth of building new housing (certainly if traditionally constructed), before sufficient numbers of them could push the prices down even a little. In the meantime, builders, landowners and mortgage lenders would hope to be able to carry on making their profits unhindered!
By the time the planned massive building boom will have begun to have had any noticeable effect, the players described will have made all the profits they were hoping to make for themselves!

The other and far more applicable answer would be to make the necessary changes to the way houses are bought, sold and let. Doing this now, alongside building more housing units, is the best and only way to restore the housing economy to sound health once again.

What do you think about this idea for drastically improving the operation of all housing markets potentially across the whole of Britain?

Constructive comments are very much welcomed.

Posted on

Intro to: The House Price Solution – the key to fairer house prices

The Independent newspaper recently published in its online version with the headline:
“More than 8 million people in England are living in unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable homes, the report says.”
If accurate, this predicament is unacceptable and in urgent need of remedying with the help of our government.

There have been many claims of similar housing crises over past decades in the media. These claims suggest that all is very far from well in the housing sector. as the old adage goes; there’s no smoke without fire!

This is why over decades past and as I’m now a retired valuation surveyor, I have views on the reasons for these failings, particularly as they adversely affect poorer communities.

Because of this I’ve devised a new and better way to deal with the currently unaffordable level of house prices and associated housing issues because purchase prices currently being claimed as being ‘affordable’ are very clearly not really affordable at all.

Once you take a look into this, it should become crystal clear that it is the poorer buyers whom are actually propping up the house prices for the rest of the home owners!

Why is this so? Because it is they who must borrow astronomical sums of money (to them), by mortgaging the very properties which they need to live in, so that the present very high prices prevailing in a so-called open marketplace may be maintained. One has to ask, who gains most from them doing this?

Firstly, it is those fortunate enough to already have substantial property assets and who enjoy a healthy and almost guaranteed rise in the capital values of their relatively extensive holdings. Secondly, it is the banks and financial organisations that gain from earning interest on the substantial loans which they can thus arrange. Profits derived from these activities depend on the ability of those on this side of the equation to be able to liquidate these large financial rewards each time they sell these assets, without having to do much to earn the extremely large profits involved.

Borrowers today by comparison, have increasing job insecurity issues, especially borrowers on the lower rungs of the property ladder who have to commit to high mortgages by taking on burdensome and increasingly risky and long-term borrowings. These families and individuals are the ones who need relief, by way of a lessening of their large and onerous borrowing commitments they are being forced into making.

It is time the whole rigged house-selling regime, which is being played out using the historic role of estate agency, is re-balanced, such that those wishing to make money from owning property are seen as causing excessive un-affordability issues being experienced by an increasing number of poorer, aspiring to become, home owners in this country.
Is there a political party in the land that might contemplate such a re-think? Let’s hope so.

Those requiring housing should rightly expect to depend upon an efficient and fully functional housing marketplace in order to move house and should expect be able to reasonably afford to buy, or alternatively rent, their next housing accommodation.

Judging by the recent dramatic slowdown of sales transactions as shown in the current sales completion statistics, efficient agency services are simply not available at present.

For anyone interested in the best and only way to correct this unacceptable shortcoming, please read, mark and digest the proposals within: The House Price Solution starting at the following link.

The House Price Solution (otherwise known as The Hendry Solution)

How to Improve the Housing Markets in England and Wales.
The background of this, leading to the logically deduced conclusion arrived at, starts at the following link:

Home Page – improvethehousingmarket.co.uk

As author I would be happy to engage in online discussions about the technicalities and/or the new strategies necessary in order to reach perfection in the operation of all local housing markets in England and Wales. This web site sets out how these housing markets may be improved for the benefit of owner-occupiers, private tenants and in fact, everyone using all forms of housing everywhere in our country.

What do you think about this idea for drastically improving the operation of all housing markets potentially across the whole of Britain?

Constructive comments are very much welcomed.

Posted on

How can the housing market be made more efficient in Britain?

On face value one might be forgiven for thinking that if you want to sell a property, you might simply advertise it for sale or employ an agent to do just that.
But have you ever thought; Can the housing market be made more efficient in Britain?

To help answer this, if you were selling any other item such as a car or a boat for example, advertising it or using an agent to do so would be a reasonable thing to do but not with houses as I will explain.

With houses things are different because houses are capital assets, rather than depreciating ones. In other words, they are not mere chattels to be chalked up at a notional price and simply sold.

How is this so?

It’s because the amount of work and expertise required to build a house is sufficiently great to cause its value in the market place to adjust, upwards or downwards, depending on buyer’s demand and their ability to pay to purchase the property.
Secondly, houses are expected to last for around a century, which is different to most other things that are sold or let.

Thirdly, the availability of finance or mortgage borrowing is another primary factor which affects the prices of houses in the marketplaces wherever they are situated.

Question:
Why can’t a selling agent just deal with all of that?

Because the important aspect when selling is to know and understand how many buyers are out there and what might they each be prepared to offer (or bid) once they have everything in place to make a final decision. Buyers also need to arrange things they require like a survey, a confirmed mortgage offer, completed legal searches etc…

The best people to deal with all these matters would unquestionably be an agent acting specifically for the buyer in question.

Only they could best represent each buyer and in fact therefore could also serve vendors to best advantage too.

Why would this be an improvement?

It would be an improvement because selling agents do not, in fact, act for any of the buyers whereas buying agents would be able to do so all the time.

Selling agents can only act for those selling their houses. This is half of the marketplace of course; and that’s exactly where the problem lies.

Registered House Buying Agents, [RHBs] on the other hand, would be acting for multiple buyers simultaneously so they would be fully in touch with these buyers as well as knowing what houses are currently available for sale on the market. They would know all of this because their other buyers will be among those selling too.

The difference between the two types of agents is that with selling agents, once they sell a property on behalf of their vendor-client, they aren’t interested in who else is buying. They’re only interested in who else may be selling!

Working in that way is, as I say, only dealing with one half of the housing marketplace at any one time. It is this which is causing the housing marketplace to malfunction or to perform badly. It is this which is causing wild price swings upwards and downwards, depending upon the availability of purchasing power (or buyer demand) at the time.

For as long as the existing estate agents are isolating themselves from being responsible for dealing with the buying side of the housing marketplace, price anomalies will continue.

The result must be more of what we see today, buyer frustration at what might have been, as regards home ownership.

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. A campaign ought to be mounted to bring this matter to the attention of our government should those interested in this wish that to happen.

Using this logic (as well as other arguments), I emphatically suggest that the existing vendor-centric estate agent model is no longer fit for purpose, is out of date and is way too inefficient.

What do you think about this idea for drastically improving the operation of all housing markets potentially across the whole of Britain?

Constructive comments are very much welcomed.

Extra reading:
Article in The Property Industry Eye dated 9th May 2019 giving the current market downturn information:
Estate agents are reporting a drop in property instructions
New instructions sink to a three-year low – and worse is expected.