Budget wishlist for the property sector

Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and a former RICS residential chairman

The importance of improving supply of affordable housing to rent and buy, as well as transactions in view of their multiplier effect on job and social mobility, does not seem in dispute. We will be looking to see what impact the Budget has on those key areas. For instance, are the number of planning applications for private and social housebuilding likely to increase, keeping prices and rents in check?

It is also generally accepted that first-time buyers are the engine room of the housing market. They trade up regularly, enable second steppers, and release rental properties back onto the market. Tenants would much rather pay their mortgage than their landlord’s.

Since Help to Buy – which should more accurately have been labelled Help to Sell – came to an end, there has been little take up of the Mortgage Guarantee or shared equity schemes. So, some encouragement, such as retaining stamp duty concessions for first-time buyers, would be welcome. Talking of which, reductions in stamp duty, linked to improved energy efficiency, would represent a win-win – not just for the environment but for market activity. More incentives to bring empty or under-used homes back into use is also required.

Landlords are leaving the sector, not yet in their droves, but in sufficient numbers to make rents unaffordable for many, while choice remains so poor. It is worth bearing in mind that approximately 25 per cent of PRS tenants pay housing benefit to landlords who effectively provide the social housing that government is unwilling or unable to offer. We need more government help to retain good, often elderly, landlords and encourage others to take their place. The cost of fixing the present housing crisis is huge but the cost of doing little or nothing is likely to be much higher – not just in the mounting cost of paying housing benefit and providing temporary accommodation.

Either way, Madam Chancellor, please leave well alone and try to stimulate as much selling and renting as possible, which will not only be good for the market but economic growth.

Via @PropertyWire