2011 is set to be worst year in decades for UK house sales
The latest set of residential property transactions figures from HMRC (the Revenue) make for rather gloomy reading. Without a perking up of sales in the final quarter the number of homes sold in 2011...
View ArticleHas the Office for Budget Responsibility misread the housing market?
There seems to be a fair chance the Office for Budget Responsibility’s view of the housing market may be badly awry. Why would that be that bad? 1. Because it potentially supports a complacent attitude...
View ArticleHousing market hits a boggy patch
Most of the recently released housing indicators suggest the market is going through a boggy patch and today’s survey from the surveyors’ body RICS seems to add support to that view. The price...
View ArticleBeware estate agents selling optimism – the housing market remains in a...
There was a very upbeat headline given by the RICS press office to the latest housing market survey released today by the surveyors’ body. Judging by various headlines from news outlets, including that...
View ArticleOptimism rises that 2013 will see more homes sold – that should mean more...
Estate agents are increasingly optimistic that 2013 will see housing transactions rise. That’s encouraging for their books. But if they’re right it’s good news for construction, house builders in...
View ArticlePositive signs in the RICS housing survey – but nothing to get too excited about
Recent surveys of the housing market by the surveyors’ body RICS have become increasingly positive in tone and are finding increasing signs of life. There are some promising signs in the findings for...
View ArticleWhat can you do when a radical and unashamedly ambitious housing strategy...
Listening to the Budget speech is often theatre, with oohs and ahhs. Reading the documents is more often a prosaic task punctuated with eh? and what? This Budget provided no exception. Even though it...
View ArticleWhat really drives planning applications?
They say: “If you don’t ask, you don’t get.” That’s certainly true for house builders and developers looking to gain planning permission. If they want to increase their supply of permissioned land on...
View ArticleThose house building numbers: Joy, reality then annoyance
The latest official housing figures provide a bit of a puzzle. The uplift in the actual figures doesn’t look that spectacular when you plot the graphs, so why is there so much fuss? The tale on the...
View ArticleIs the deep-seated problem of housing supply really just about planning?
Does constraint on planning approvals restrict the supply of homes or does the demand for homes determine the level of planning approvals? Perhaps both work in tandem or parallel. These questions have...
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