In March it was announced that if the Conservative party wins the election, the Starter Homes initiative will be extended to 200,000 homes, effectively doubling the coalition government’s plan to build 100,000 homes at 20% below the market price for first-time buyers aged below 40. Starter Homes are to be built on brownfield land and will be exempt from section 106 charges and the Community Infrastructure Levy. First time buyers are now registering to buy a home under the scheme.
Here at Pasquill we welcome this news. Anything that helps first-time buyers get themselves onto the property ladder has to be positive. I’m confident that developers will do the decent thing and offer homes on these schemes at 20% below the market price, although the government has not made it clear how it will ensure that this will be guaranteed.
Without wishing to pour cold water on this initiative, I am still at a loss as to how people on low incomes will benefit when the requirement for builders to provide affordable housing on these particular Starter Homes schemes has now been removed. I appreciate that the Starter Homes scheme has the intention to get developers building and to try to do more to get young people on the property ladder, but what we really need more of is houses that they can genuinely afford. It will be interesting to see what proportion of those who have registered to buy will actually be able to go ahead and purchase, once the new homes start being built. Needless to say, we would welcome initiatives such as this one from any of the political parties.
The Chancellor’s recent budget announcement of a ‘Help To Buy ISA’, which will be introduced in the autumn is good news. For every £200 saved by the first-time house buyer, the government will top it up with £50. However, the maximum top-up by the government is £3,000. This is a great start, but one outcome of the election that we would hope for is to see this top-up raised in order to take account of the current housing market.
Also in the recent budget was the announcement of 20 new confirmed housing zones outside London: double the number announced in June last year. A ‘housing zone’ is an area of land where the government provides funding to unlock the scheme, for example in the forms of infrastructure, site acquisition and leaseholder buyouts. The developer and local authority commit to providing a certain level of affordable and private housing, and must meet these targets on deadline as a condition of the funding. These zones will provide up to 45,000 homes, according to the Treasury.
Again, from the timber industry’s point of view, this is another step in the right direction, and we would hope that whichever party wins the election continues to build on initiatives such as this one in order to boost the house building industry sector.
