A report said that local councils needed greater freedoms to help council tenants own part of the homes they rented from their landlord.
Source: Christine Whitehead, Tony Travers and Torunn Kielland, A Stake in the Future: Equity stakes and landlord savings plans, London Councils (020 7934 9999)
Links: Report | London Councils press release | Inside Housing report
Date: 2006-Dec
A paper examined the benefits and risks of low-cost home-ownership initiatives. The schemes seemed to be reasonably well targeted: but the poorest households could not afford the schemes even with significant subsidy.
Source: Youngha Cho and Christine Whitehead, Affordable Low Cost Home Ownership: A case study in England, Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development/Oxford Brookes University (01865 483430)
Links: Paper
Date: 2006-Dec
The report was published of a government taskforce which examined ways to increase the number of households able to access home-ownership through shared-equity products. The report also set out the steps which the government would take to remove barriers and stimulate the development of market shared-equity products.
Source: Report of the Shared Equity Task Force, HM Treasury (020 7270 4558)
Links: Report | Shelter press release | CML press release | BSA press release
Date: 2006-Dec
An annual analysis of the housing market covering every local authority area across Great Britain showed that the ratio of house prices to household incomes for working households had reached record levels.
Source: Steve Wilcox, The Geography of Affordable and Unaffordable Housing: And the ability of younger working households to become home owners, York Publishing Services for Joseph Rowntree Foundation, available from York Publishing Services Ltd (01904 430033)
Links: Report | JRF Findings | JRF press release
Date: 2006-Dec
A report examined the practice and cost of service charges being billed to leaseholders in former 'right to buy' properties to pay for repairs resulting from local authorities? obligations to bring all council properties up to the decent homes standard by 2010. It said that the scale of problems, both in terms of the number of leaseholders faced with bills in excess of £10,000 and the numbers who were faced with hardship as a result of these high bills, was modest.
Source: Assessment of the Impact of the Cost of Repairs for Right to Buy Leaseholders, Department for Communities and Local Government (0870 1226 236)
Date: 2006-Nov
The government published a Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill. The Bill was designed to: require estate agents to join a redress scheme; strengthen the regulation of estate agents by requiring them to keep records, and by allowing trading standards officers to inspect those records; strengthen and streamline consumer representation by bringing together the National Consumer Council, Energywatch and Postwatch; and enable the government to require suppliers or service providers in the energy and postal services sectors to belong to redress schemes.
Source: Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Bill [HL], Department of Trade and Industry, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Text of Bill | Explanatory Notes | Hansard | DTI press release | Downing Street Briefing | Age Concern press release | Consumer Association press release | Times report | FT report | BBC report (1) | BBC report (2) | Guardian report
Date: 2006-Nov
The government launched the 'Open Market HomeBuy' scheme, aimed at helping 20,000 households on low or moderate incomes to buy their first house. It was aimed at public sector workers, social housing tenants, and those on council house waiting lists. Under the initiative, homebuyers would take out a mortgage for 75 per cent of a property's value with one of a group of selected banks and building societies. The lender would also provide the borrower with a 12.5 per cent equity loan, and the government would also lend 12.5 per cent, making a total deposit of 25 per cent.
Source: Press release 2 October 2006, Department for Communities and Local Government (020 7944 3000)
Links: DCLG press release | Housing Corporation press release | Inside Housing report | Guardian report
Date: 2006-Oct
A report said that attitudes to moving home were influenced by social class background. Working class residents saw the choice of where to live as only between the suburban ideal, which they could not have, and 'everything else'. They did not consider a strategic move to climb the housing ladder, helping them to reach suburbia eventually.
Source: Chris Allen, Understanding Residential Mobility and Residential Immobility, Economic and Social Research Council (01793 413000)
Links: ESRC press release
Date: 2006-Oct
A report examined the extent to which housing affordability had been a restraint on effective labour supply in Scotland. The evidence collected as part of the study did not support the view that there had been a general affordability problem in the owner-occupied sector in recent years. There had been affordability pressures for low-income, single-earner households since around the late 1990s: but these had moderated.
Source: Andrea Glass, Alan McGregor, Alex McTier, Tony O Sullivan and Gillian Young, Affordable Housing and the Labour Market in Scotland, Communities Scotland (web publication only)
Links: Report
Date: 2006-Oct
A survey found that some 770,000 people with a mortgage had missed one or more mortgage payments in the previous twelve months.
Source: GfK NOP, Homeownership and Debt, Citizens Advice (020 7833 2181)
Links: Report | Citizens Advice press release | Guardian report
Date: 2006-Sep
The government announced that the home condition report, which was to form the survey element of the home information packs, would not be (as previously planned) an obligatory part of packs when they were launched in 2007. It said that further testing of home condition reports was needed to ensure they delivered the intended benefits for consumers.
Source: House of Commons Hansard, Written Ministerial Statement 18 July 2006, columns 11-13WS, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Hansard | DCLG press release | CML press release | Law Society press release | Guardian report | FT report | Times report | BBC report
Date: 2006-Jul
An audit report said that better targeting of low-cost home-ownership assistance at those most in need of help, and more efficient administration of the programmes, could help more than 4,000 additional households each year.
Source: A Foot on the Ladder: Low cost home ownership assistance, HC 1048 (Session 2005-06), National Audit Office, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | NAO press release
Date: 2006-Jul
A report said that the full benefits of home information packs, particularly from a lending perspective, might not be seen until several years after implementation, because of the lateness of the technical standards and the resultant delay in investment in systems.
Source: Michael Wagstaff and Bob Pannell, Mortgage Lenders, HIPs and the Future of Valuations, Council of Mortgage Lenders (020 7437 0075)
Links: Report
Date: 2006-Jul
A report said that the average house price in England would rise from just under 195,000 in the first quarter of 2006 to around 286,500 in 2011 - a rise of around 50 per cent. House price inflation would outpace growth in earnings and disposable incomes in every year between 2006 and 2011.
Source: England s Housing Timebomb: Affordability and supply 2006-2011, National Housing Federation (020 7278 6571)
Links: Report | NHF press release
Date: 2006-Jul
A report said that privately funded housing co-operatives could be an effective tool for people in housing need: but they needed to respond to the changing housing market by adapting their model to include aspects such as: high added-value development using eco-construction techniques; infill and extension in existing residential locations; self-contained accommodation; and more complex finance arrangements and equity stakes for members.
Source: The Feasibility of Housing Co-operatives in a Rising Housing Market, UpStart Services Ltd (0845 458 1473)
Links: Report
Date: 2006-Jun
The government published the detailed contents required of 'home information packs'. From 1 June 2007 home-owners would have to provide a pack when marketing their homes for sale throughout England and Wales. The pack would include a home condition report, terms of sale, and any search details. An energy efficiency rating would be included in the report, enabling potential buyers to assess the likely running costs of a property.
Source: The Home Information Pack Regulations 2006, Statutory Instrument 2006/1503, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Text of Statutory Instrument | Hansard | DCLG press release | LGA press release | FOE press release | FT report | BBC report
Date: 2006-Jun
A report said that the introduction of home information packs would lead to a fall in the number of properties changing hands, and could hit economic growth and consumer spending.
Source: The Impact of Home Information Packs, Oxford Economic Forecasting (01865 268900)
Links: Report | PA report | DCLG statement
Date: 2006-Jun
A Member of Parliament introduced a Bill designed to protect from eviction people who were temporarily unable to make mortgage payments, and establish a single regulatory regime to oversee the mortgage industry.
Source: Regulation of Mortgage Repossessions Bill, George Mudie MP, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Hansard
Date: 2006-May
A briefing paper examined the increasing dominance of home-ownership as a policy aim. It questioned the growing assumption among politicians and policy-makers that increasing home-ownership was key to tackling problems of inequality and social mobility, and argued for a more balanced, cross-tenure approach to addressing the housing crisis.
Source: Catherine Grannum, Home Ownership, Shelter (020 7505 4699)
Links: Briefing
Date: 2006-May
A think-tank report said that combating the wealth inequalities produced by the growth in home-ownership could not be achieved with subsidies to help people on to the housing ladder. Nor could home-ownership alone deliver the benefits associated with mixed communities, such as improved educational outcomes and increased levels of community participation. Rather than providing large subsidies, the government should support people at either end of the lifecycle with policies that encouraged ownership of a wider range of assets. The report also examined the potential of housing wealth to meet needs in retirement, and considered how the government might make it easier for pensioners to use equity release products or trade down.
Source: Dominic Maxwell and Sonia Sodha, Housing Wealth: First timers to old timers, Institute for Public Policy Research, available from Central Books (0845 458 9911)
Links: Summary | IPPR press release
Date: 2006-May
A study found that up to half of all young first-time house buyers might be getting help from their parents to fund their deposits.
Source: James Tatch, 'Will the real first-time buyers please stand up?', Housing Finance, February 2006
Links: Article | CML press release
Date: 2006-Feb
The financial services watchdog published a discussion paper on reforms to the mortgage market. It proposed a more 'intrusive and interventionist' style of regulation. The key features included: imposing affordability tests for all mortgages, and making lenders ultimately responsible for assessing a consumer's ability to pay; banning 'self-certification' mortgages through required verification of borrowers' income; banning the sale of products that put borrowers at risk; banning arrears charges when a borrower was already repaying; and ensuring that firms did not profit from people in arrears.
Source: Mortgage Market Review, Financial Services Authority (0845 608 2372)
Links: Discussion paper | FSA press release | CML press release | NLA press release | NAEA press release | BSA press release | Liberal Democrats press release | Guardian report
Date: 2006-Jan
A report said that mobility was more constrained among those in shared-ownership arrangements than in any other housing tenure. A significant minority of shared owners wanted to move but could not do so: they remained unable to afford a home on the open market, but for a number of reasons were also often prevented from moving to another shared-ownership property. Shared ownership could no longer be viewed as a transitional tenure, as for many people it had became a permanent hybrid tenure between owning and renting.
Source: Alison Wallace, Achieving Mobility in the Intermediate Housing Market Moving up and moving on?, Chartered Institute of Housing (024 7685 1700) for Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Links: Report | Findings | JRF press release | Inside Housing report
Date: 2006-Jan
Date: 2006-Jan
A report said that it was difficult to predict the impact of home information packs on the level and pattern of housing market activity: but they could pose unintended risks in the short- and longer-term.
Source: How Disruptive Will HIPs Be?, Council of Mortgage Lenders (020 7437 0075)
Links: Report | CML press release
Date: 2006-Jan
An independent review said that the government should actively encourage the banking industry, both domestically and internationally, to adopt new standards of standardization and transparency in the market in mortgage-backed securities. It said that there was a strong case for the government to intervene in mortgage finance markets with the explicit objective of containing the impact of the global financial crisis on consumers and the wider economy – to be achieved through the auction, during 2009 and 2010, of around £100 billion of the guarantees.
Source: James Crosby, Mortgage Finance: Final Report and Recommendations, HM Treasury (020 7270 4558)
Links: Report
Date: 2006-Jan
A discussion paper said that the impact of ageing and social security reform on demand for housing and the level of owner-occupation was substantial, suggesting that any changes in pension rules would have substantial knock-on effects on the housing market.
Source: Ales Cerny, David Miles and Lubomir Schmidt, The Impact of Changing Demographics and Pensions on the Demand for Housing and Financial Assets, Discussion Paper 267, National Institute for Economic and Social Research (020 7654 1901)
Links: Discussion paper | Summary
Date: 2006-Jan
