Housing Industry Facts & Stats 2014

Conroy Brook share latest housing industry facts and stats from the House Builders Federation.

House Building Stats

We need to build at least 220,000 homes a year in order to meet new household projections. Household projections predict the number of new households that will form over a given time period, in this case between 2011 – 2021.
There were just 107,820 homes completed in 2012-13, so we are already behind target.
The construction sector has grown for 14 consecutive months, with companies taking on new workers at the fastest rate for 17 years. (July 2014)

Housing Crisis

In the last 40 years the average house price to salary ratio has almost doubled; the price of the average home purchased is now almost 7x the average annual salary of the buyer.
In 2012/13 England had one of the lowest house building rates since 1923 – there were just 108,190 completions.
First time buyers are at record lows. Eight out of ten first-time buyers require financial help from family or friends, and the average age of unassisted first-time buyers has soared.

Reasons to buy a new home

91% of new home-owners would recommend their builder to a friend.
91% were satisfied or very satisfied with the overall quality of their home.
Since the introduction of the Customer Satisfaction Survey 7 years ago there has been year on year improvement in the industry.
High build quality.
Cheaper to run.
Designed for modern living.
Environmentally friendly.
10 year NHBC warranty.

Help to Buy / New Buy

Stats released in July 2014 show that 4,357 households bought new build homes through the Help to Buy equity loan scheme in June - the highest monthly total since the scheme was launched in April 2013.
Over 32,500 households have bought new build homes through Help to Buy and New Buy since the schemes began.
Over 80% of sales have gone to first time buyers, resulting in a 34% increase in private housebuilding during the first year.

Planning Myths

The countryside is already over-developed/house building is concreting over the countryside. The total area of the country which is developed is 10%. Even in the South East (excluding London) only 12% of land is developed. Of that developed area, a large proportion is parks, gardens and natural environments – in fact only around 2.27% of England is actually built on or ‘concreted over’. Between 2000 and 2010, new housing accounted for just 0.13% of England’s land area.
There are 700,000 empty homes in England – they should be used to meet housing need. There are actually fewer than 260,000 homes that have been empty for 6 months or more – the others are normal temporary transactional vacancies. In fact we have one of the lowest vacancy rates in Europe.
It’s not the planning system that is preventing building – it’s the economy. While it is absolutely true that the general economic climate and current restrictions on credit have been a major factor in the housing market since late 2007, there can be no doubt that our historic undersupply of homes – over some 20 years at least – is a result of a planning system which has not been fit for purpose for some time – this was the conclusion of the Barker Review of housing supply back in 2004.

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